A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 


A 


WORKING  THEOLOGY 


BY 


ALEXANDER  MacCOLL 


OF  THE 


$=" 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
NEW   YORK     :     :      :     :     :     1909 


*mnr. 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  February,  1909 


WALTER   W.   LAW,   ESQ., 

OF  BRIARCLIFF  MANOR,  NEW  YORK, 

IN  GRATEFUL  RECOLLECTION  OF  TEN  HAPPY 

YEARS   IN  THE  COMMUNITY  WHICH 

HIS   GENIUS   HAS  CONSTRUCTED,   AND   IN 

THE   CHURCH   WHOSE   WALLS   HE   BUILT,   WHOSE 

SPIRIT  HE  CONSTANTLY  ENRICHED 


184838 


PREFACE 

npHEOLOGY  in  its  simplest  sense  is  thought 
about  God  and  man  and  this  wonderful 
universe.  A  working  theology  is  a  theology 
that  works,  one,  that  is  to  say,  which  closely 
touches  life,  confirms  itself  in  experience,  and 
issues  in  power.  Its  keynotes  are  reverence 
and  reality. 

The  theology  set  forth  in  these  pages  is 
neither  complete  nor  systematic.  It  leaves 
many  vital  questions  untouched,  great  gaps 
unbridged.  The  aim  has  been  not  so  much 
to  fathom  the  ultimate  as  to  set  forth  a 
religious  faith  which  will  prove  a  strong  work- 
ing-basis for  everyday  life.  My  hope  is  that 
the  book  may  prove  useful  not  only  to  brother 
ministers,  but  to  many  in  our  churches  who 
are  earnestly  seeking  a  point  of  contact  be- 
tween the  older  thought  and  the  new. 

MORRISTOWN,  N.  J., 

February,  1909. 

Vll 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    The    Religious   Attitude   toward   the 

Newer  Conceptions  of  Truth  ...  i 

II.     God  the  Loving  Father;  Man  the  Er- 
ring Child 8 

III.  Divine  Providence  in  the  Play  of  Cos- 

mic Processes 15 

IV.  Prayer  in  a  World  of  Law 26 

V.    Miracles  in  a  Scientific  Age  ....  39 

VI.    The  Bible  in   the   Light  of   Modern 

Revelation  and  Inspiration  ....  50 

VII.    The  Sense  of  Sin  in  Modern  Life  .    .  67 

VIII.    The  Great  Gospel  of  the  Cross     .    .  80 

IX.    Things  to  Come 93 


^      OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

I 

THE  RELIGIOUS  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  THE  NEWER 
CONCEPTIONS  OF  TRUTH 

A  T  the  base  of  a  wise  working  theology  is  a 
frank  recognition  of  the  limitations  of 
human  knowledge.  Our  Saviour  once,  at  least, 
confessed  his  ignorance;  his  Church  in  this, 
more  almost  than  in  anything  else,  has  hesitated 
to  follow  him.  Great  emphasis  has  been  placed 
upon  self-consistent  systems  of  theology  which, 
mainly  as  a  mental  gymnastic,  have  been  strong 
and  creative,  when  men  have  recognized  (as, 
alas!  they  have  not  always),  that  the  truth  of 
God  must  be  infinitely  larger  than  the  gropings 
of  men;  that  spiritual  reality  can  be  revealed  to 
men  encased  in  the  flesh,  gripped  by  material 
things,  mainly  in  symbol;  that  "language  is  not 
so  much  descriptive  as  it  is  suggestive,  being  fig- 
urative throughout  even  when  it  deals  with 
spiritual  truth."  *    Even  in  this  age  men  do  not 

♦Horace  Bushnell. 

i 


2  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

hesitate  to  dash  off  a  theology  at  a  sitting,  or  to 
sum  up  the  eternities  in  an  epigram.  It  is  well 
to  remember  that  a  complete  creed  is  always  a 
false  creed;  for  we  know  in  part. 

The  changes  which  have  come  over  the  re- 
ligious thinking  of  men  in  recent  years  have 
been  repeatedly  set  forth.  The  universe,  we  are 
told,  is  infinitely  bigger  than  men  thought  it; 
the  world  in  which  we  live  is  infinitely  older. 
Our  planet  was  not  made  in  six  literal  days  by 
direct  creative  fiat,  but  coming  no  less  from 
God's  hand,  working  out  marvellously  his  will, 
it  grew  up  through  the  slow  struggle  and  growth 
of  long  ages,  from  cruder  forms  of  life  to  higher, 
until  at  last  man  himself  came  forth,  and  began 
his  wondrous  career  of  self-discovery  and  world- 
conquest.  The  emphasis  of  thought  has  passed 
from  God  transcendent,  dwelling  apart  from  our 
world,  setting  it  going,  interfering  now  and  then 
in  mercy  or  in  wrath,  to  God  immanent,  ever 
present,  ever  potent,  in  every  moment,  in  every 
method,  of  its  life.  There  are  new  views  of  re- 
ligious authority;  its  seat,  we  are  told,  is  within, 
not  without;  in  the  God-illumined  conscience, 
not  in  church  or  book.    There  is  a  new  psychol- 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  3 

ogy,  which  startles  us  with  many  a  statement 
about  the  mystery  of  personality,  but  makes 
easier  than  ever  belief  in  a  spiritual  universe,  in 
spiritual  forces,  and  spiritual  contact.  "  Science 
is  trembling  upon  the  verge  of  something  great." 
So  is  faith.  This  might  be  called  an  age  of 
transition,  save  that  every  progressive  age  has 
been  so  called.  "In  knowledge/'  said  the  hum- 
ble-minded and  godly  Faraday,  "that  man  only 
is  to  be  contemned  who  is  not  in  a  state  of 
transition." 

What  is  the  religious  attitude  toward  the 
newer  conceptions  of  truth  ?  Can  we  believe 
that  they  are  simply  profane  and  vain  babblings, 
and  oppositions  of  science  falsely  so  called  ? 
Can  we  believe  that  the  last  word  about  the  uni- 
verse was  said  centuries  ago,  and  that  the  later 
light  is  darkness  ?  Shall  we  be  of  the  number 
of  those  who  fear  constantly  that  something 
may  be  discovered  which  will  break  down  for- 
ever the  cherished  hopes  of  the  ages  ?  This 
surely  is  cowardice  and  the  rankest  atheism. 
Or  shall  we  be  of  those,  a  great  multitude,  who, 
because  the  mystery  is  great,  give  it  up,  because 
some  pinhead  definition  fails,  give  themselves  to 


4  A  WORKING   THEOLOGY 

eating  and  drinking  and  making  money  ?  This 
surely  is  not  only  to  deny  God,  but  to  degrade 
human  life. 

The  true  attitude  is  that  of  men  of  open  mind, 
eager  to  learn,  responsive  to  every  whisper  of 
truth,  from  whatever  source  it  comes.  Largely 
the  business  of  life  is  to  learn.  God  has  not 
given  us  a  finished  universe  whose  mission  and 
method  are  at  once  clear,  but  a  world  in  the 
making,  a  great  kingdom  of  truth  and  love  in 
the  germ,  in  which  men  groping  and  growing, 
stumbling  and  rising  again,  in  that  very  process 
are  to  find  themselves  and  to  find  their  God. 
Conviction  which  closes  the  mind  to  new  light 
is  prejudice,  and  prejudice  is  the  most  fatal 
form  of  ignorance. 

But,  eager  to  learn,  we  must  be  cautious  to 
conclude  that  the  thing  that  is  new  is  neces- 
sarily the  thing  that  is  true.  In  this  the  leaders 
of  modern  science  set  a  good  example.  The 
wisest  of  them  still  speak  of  the  great  principle 
of  growth  which  has  revolutionized  the  thought 
of  men  in  the  last  fifty  years  as  "the  evolutionary 
hypothesis."  While  there  is  one  missing  link 
the  chain  is  not  complete.    Again  and  again  the 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  5 

confident  conclusion  of  to-day  has  been  the  ex- 
ploded fallacy  of  to-morrow.  "That  is  possi- 
ble," Louis  Pasteur  used  to  say,  "but  we  must 
look  more  deeply  into  the  subject."  The 
thoughts  of  men  frequently  swing  from  one  ex- 
treme to  another  ere  they  light  upon  the  central 
pole  of  truth. 

Again,  a  humble  and  reverent  spirit  is  essen- 
tial to  a  truly  religious  attitude.  Our  men  of 
science  feel  themselves  in  the  presence  of  a 
greatness  that  is  far  beyond  them.  "  In  ultimate 
essence,"  says  one  of  them,  "we  know  abso- 
lutely nothing."  "Science,"  says  another,  "is 
groping  after  a  definition  of  life."  "The  natu- 
ralist," says  Professor  Shaler,  "ends  always 
with  the  sense  that  the  known,  however  far  his 
knowing  may  go,  must  be  to  that  which  is  to 
remain  undiscovered  as  one  to  infinity,  as  noth- 
ing to  the  whole."  The  man  who  feels  this  will 
be  in  no  danger  of  pride  of  mind,  he  will  be 
humbled  every  day  in  the  presence  of  the  in- 
finite greatness  of  which  he  is  so  small  a  part, 
his  every  earnest  thought  will  be  an  aspiration, 
his  whole  life  a  prayer. 

Most  of  all,  the  truly  religious  attitude  tow- 


6  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

ard  the  newer  thought  of  our  time  is  that  of  men 
who  have  the  courage  and  expectation  and 
broadening  vision  of  a  rugged  and  fearless  faith. 
Upon  this  point  the  testimony  of  history  is  very 
suggestive.  Some  of  us  can  remember  the 
anxious  fear  with  which  men  watched  the  ex- 
periments of  Louis  Pasteur  and  others  on  the 
spontaneous  generation  of  life,  for,  said  many, 
if  this  be  established,  the  whole  structure  of 
Christian  faith  will  topple  to  destruction.  But 
to-day  Christian  biologists  tell  us  that  even  if 
spontaneous  generation  should  be  established, 
as  some  of  them  believe  it  will,  the  only  effect 
would  be  to  carry  back  the  evolutionary  process 
one  step  further;  the  discovery  would  not 
eliminate  God,  but  increase  immeasurably  the 
marvel  of  his  method.  So  there  are  those  to-day 
who  tell  us  that  if  the  present  philosophic  ten- 
dency toward  monism  should  be  established;  if 
it  should  be  shown  that  the  essence  of  a  human 
life,  the  things  of  which  it  is  made,  are  not  two, 
body  and  spirit,  but  one  single  essence  mani- 
festing itself  in  two  sets  of  phenomena,  all  hope 
of  the  permanence  of  the  individual  as  a  factor 
in  the  universe  will  pass  from  the  thought  of 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  7 

reasonable  men.  But  no.  History  rings  with 
predictions  of  the  extinction  of  Christian  faith. 
Voltaire  says  that  in  fifty  years  it  will  be  dead; 
and  in  fifty  years  the  very  house  in  which  he 
made  the  prediction  is  a  depot  for  the  circula- 
tion of  the  Scriptures.  "The  foundation  of  God 
standeth  sure."  The  universe  has  meaning;  it 
speaks  everywhere  of  infinite  thought,  of  infinite 
patience,  of  infinite  purpose.  "Our  souls  were 
made  for  God,  and  they  are  restless  until  they 
find  him.,,  Long  ago,  one  of  humble,  self-less 
spirit,  whose  earthly  life  was  to  human  eyes  a 
tragic  failure,  forsaken  by  his  few  friends,  cru- 
cified upon  a  tree,  dared  to  say,  "Heaven  and 
Earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  not 
pass  away."  Is  not  the  past  a  glorious  proph- 
ecy of  the  future  ?  Is  it  not  reasonable  to  be 
sure  that  "  the  best  is  yet  to  be  "  ?  Out  of  his 
Holy  Word,  out  of  the  exhaustless  storehouses 
of  the  natural  world,  out  of  the  hearts  of  men 
growing  up  into  his  image,  God  has  yet  more 
light  to  break  forth,  more  love  to  radiate,  larger 
life  here  and  hereafter  to  reveal.  "Oh  how 
great  is  Thy  goodness  which  Thou  hast  laid  up 
for  them  that  fear  Thee." 


II 

GOD  THE  LOVING  FATHER;  MAN  THE  ERRING 

CHILD 

A  WORKING  theology  is  born  of  another 
conscious  limitation,  the  limitation  of 
power,  the  limitation  of  moral  achievement. 
The  I,  groping,  stumbling,  falling,  saying  "I 
will,"  and  living  "I  won't,"  misled  by  its  own 
confidence,  starved  by  its  own  indulgence,  craves 
somewhere  in  the  universe  a  Thou,  stronger, 
wiser,  purer. 

In  a  working  theology,  the  doctrine  of  God  is 
summed  up  in  the  two  words  of  Jesus,  "God  is 
Spirit,"  and  "Your  Father  and  my  Father." 
The  one  tells  us  all  we  can  know  of  his  being; 
the  other  all  we  need  know  of  his  character. 

"God  is  Spirit" — more  akin  to  the  atmos- 
phere we  breathe,  which  no  man  sees,  without 
which  no  man  lives,  than  to  the  physical  forms 
on  which  we  look;  more  akin  to  thought  which 
flits  hither  and  thither  at  will  than  to  the  physi- 
cal brain;    to  love  which  is  eternal,  immortal, 

invisible,   than   to  the    physical   heart.     "The 

8 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  9 

wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest 
the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it 
cometh,  and  whither  it  goeth;  so  is  every  one 
that  is  born  of  the  Spirit."  He  is  the  first  cause, 
the  final  goal  of  all  things,  in  all  life,  but  above 
all  life.  But  according  to  the  Scriptures,  and 
according  to  the  rich  testimony  of  experience, 
God  is  not  a  mere  vapor,  an  essence,  a  force;  he 
has  those  qualities  imperfectly  summed  up  in 
the  word  personality — imperfectly,  for  no  word 
of  human  speech  can  fully  define  him — which 
make  it  possible  for  man  to  know  him,  and  to 
love  him,  and  to  be  like  him.  The  thought  of 
God  as  a  Spirit  is  ever  to  be  balanced  by  the 
thought  of  God  as  a  Person;  he  thinks  and  feels 
and  wills  as  we  do;  he  has  self-consciousness 
and  self-direction.  But  the  thought  of  God  as  a 
Person  is  ever  to  be  balanced  by  the  thought  of 
God  as  a  Spirit;  he  has  none  of  our  limitations, 
the  limitations  of  form  and  space  and  time.  He 
is  everywhere  and  always  and  in  all  things: 

"Centre  and  soul  of  every  sphere, 
Yet  to  each  loving  heart  how  near." 

Jesus  teaches  us  to  bring  to  our  thought  of 
God,  who  is  Spirit,  one  of  the  sweetest  and  most 


io  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

sacred  of  human  names,  Father.  It  may  be 
freely  conceded  that  the  word  throws  no  light 
upon  the  great  mystery  of  the  being  and  essence 
of  God,  and  that  it  is  not  even  a  perfect  expres- 
sion of  his  character.  But  it  is  the  most  satisfy- 
ing of  all  resting-places  for  the  mind  and  heart 
as  they  seek  after  the  Infinite.  It  has  often  been 
said  that  men  made  in  the  image  of  God  have 
made  God  in  the  image  of  man.  This  is  true; 
it  has  often  been  unfortunate,  but  in  some  de- 
gree it  is  necessary.  We  cannot  conceive  God 
save  in  the  terms  of  our  own  thought,  and  in  the 
language  of  our  own  life.  It  is  at  this  point  that 
many  of  the  positions  of  the  recent  "new  the- 
ology" in  England  break  down  as  parts  of  a 
working  theology.  When  we  tell  men  that  be- 
cause of  the  essential  oneness  of  God  and  man 
and  the  solidarity  of  humanity  you  are  I,  and 
I  am  you,  and  we  are  both  God;  or  that  it  is 
impossible  to  conceive  of  anything  in  the  uni- 
verse outside  of  God,*  that  which  we  say  may 

♦There  must  be  a  region  of  experience  where  we  shall  find 
that  you  and  I  are  one.  .  .  .  My  God  is  my  deeper  Self  and 
yours  too.  .  .  .  How  can  there  be  anything  in  the  universe 
outside  of  God?" — "The  New  Theology,"  R.  J.  Campbell,  pp. 
34,  35  and  18. 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  u 

be  true  in  the  terms  of  some  man's  philosophy, 
but  to  the  men  in  our  churches  it  is  nonsense, 
it  rings  false  to  experience,  it  is  the  offering  of 
a  stone  to  men  hungry  for  bread,  and  has,  there- 
fore, no  place  in  a  working  theology.  But  when 
we  tell  them  that  the  Infinite  Spirit  who  is  in 
all  life  and  above  it — its  source,  its  strength,  its 
goal — has  toward  every  man  the  thought  and 
purpose  and  energy  of  a  father,  we  give  them 
a  truth  beneath  whose  spreading  folds  every 
experience  of  life  may  be  interpreted. 

God,  then,  in  a  working  theology,  is  Infinite 
Life  and  Love  in  all  life  regnant.  Jesus  Christ 
is  Infinite  Life  and  Love  manifest.  A  working 
theology  concerns  itself  little  with  defining 
Christ;  he  baffles,  surmounts  all  definition. 
Always  definitions  divide  men;  simple  loyalties 
unite  them.  "Every  definition,"  said  Erasmus, 
"is  a  misfortune."  It  is  a  commonplace  that 
the  controversies  of  the  ages  have,  in  the  main, 
been  controversies  about  words.  Deity,  divin- 
ity, humanity,  are  after  all  but  words  in  which 
man  concretes  his  ignorance,  mere  direction- 
points  in  the  seekings  of  the  centuries.  What 
deity  is  in  its  essence,  what  humanity  is,  what 


12  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

in  our  Master  was  divine,  what  human,  no  man 
can  know  until  he  knows  what  spirit  is,  and 
what  matter  is,  and  what,  in  its  essence,  life  is; 
and  no  man  knows  any  of  these  things  to-day. 
As  men  beheld  the  Christ,  they  said,  If  God 
has  an  only  begotten  Son,  this  must  indeed  be 
he.*  But  is  not  even  this  sacred  word  of  the 
ages  an  accommodation  to  human  thought  ? 
Must  not  the  relation  of  God  and  of  Jesus 
Christ  be  too  spiritual,  too  complete,  to  be  per- 
fectly expressed  in  the  terminology  of  any  human 
relation  ?  My  own  Christology — a  very  simple 
and  satisfying  one — is  summed  up  in  the  Mas- 
ter's word,  "I  am  the  Way";  in  the  face,  in  the 
life,  in  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  I  see  God. 
"If  ye  knew  me,"  he  said,  "ye  would  know  my 
Father  also.'5  We  know  a  man  not  when  we 
know  his  visible  form — we  see  men  every  day 
we  do  not  know — we  know  a  man  when  we 
know  his  mind  and  heart  and  spirit.  The  hum- 
blest man  who  knows  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  try- 
ing every  day  to  learn  of  him,  keeping  his 
words,  seeking  his  spirit,  doing  his  work,  knows 

*  We  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  from 
the  Father.     John  i,  14. 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  13 

more  about  God  than  all  the  wisdom  of  science 
and  philosophy  and  theology  can  teach  him. 
As  I  learn  more  of  him,  I  find  myself  saying  of 
him,  not  at  all  as  the  last  word  of  a  dogma,  but 
as  the  utterance  of  a  great  love  and  a  soul-satis- 
fying devotion,  "My  Lord  and  my  God." 

Jesus  Christ  is  God  visible  to  man;  God  ex- 
pressed in  the  form,  speaking  the  language,  do- 
ing the  work  of  a  human  life.  The  Holy  Spirit 
is  God  vital  in  man.  The  great  word  of  a  work- 
ing theology  is  power;  its  gospel  that  the  weak- 
ness of  man  may  assimilate  the  strength  of  God; 
that  in  every  struggle  of  the  soul  outward  and 
upward,  the  infinite  resources  of  the  universe 
may  be  his.  And  they  are  needed.  For  in  a 
strong  working  theology  sin  is  very  real  and 
very  terrible.  It  is  no  amiable  weakness,  no  un- 
fortunate tendency,  no  blundering  quest  after 
God.  The  depreciation  of  sin  is  the  emascula- 
tion of  religion.  It  is  true  that  sin  is  selfishness, 
the  assertion  of  the  unit  against  the  whole;  that 
punishment  is  from  within,  the  normal  fruit  of 
sin,  essential  not  arbitrary;  that  hell  is  the  re- 
morse of  the  soul  localized.  There  is  no  new 
theology  in  this;  one  finds  most  of  it  in  William 


H  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

Law  in  the  early  eighteenth  century.  But  when 
we  are  told  that  "sin  has  never  injured  God  ex- 
cept through  man "  *  a  note  is  struck  which  is 
out  of  tune  with  every  human  analogy.  The 
boy  who  grows  up  to  wrong  his  fellow-creature 
hurts  his  own  father  even  more.  The  great 
utterance  of  Calvary  is  that  the  heart  of  God  is 
rent  and  torn  with  the  sin  and  selfishness  of 
men;  that  God  is  injured,  not  in  anger,  not 
wholly  in  that  wrath  which  is  the  recoil  of  the 
pure  from  the  foul,  not  because  the  cosmic  proc- 
ess has  gone  wrong;  but  in  the  anguish  and  bit- 
ter disappointment  and  great  love  of  a  Father's 
breaking  heart.  The  very  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity is  the  personal  relation  of  God  the 
Father  and  man  the  child;  we  can  never  em- 
phasize overmuch  not  only  the  blindness,  the 
folly,  the  self-defeat  of  sin,  but  the  great  wrong 
it  does  to  a  Father's  love.  It  is  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  love  of  God  that  has  won  the  best  in 
men  through  the  ages,  and  will  to  the  end. 

♦  "The  New  Theology,"  R.  J.  Campbell,  p.  52. 


Ill 


DIVINE  PROVIDENCE  IN  THE  PLAY  OF  COSMIC 

PROCESSES 

/^REAT  emphasis  is  placed  in  a  working 
theology  upon  Divine  Providence.  By  the 
term  is  meant  the  guidance  in  all  life  of  an  In- 
finite and  beneficent  Power,  the  slow,  sure 
working  of  a  Plan,  alike  in  the  ages  of  history, 
in  the  destiny  of  nations,  and  in  the  experiences 
of  individual  men.  This  plan  embraces  in  its  ma- 
jestic sweep  no  less  the  indifference,  the  folly, 
the  antagonism  of  men  than  their  devotion  and 
aspiration  and  achievement;  ever  unfolding,  it 
is  never  complete;  often  hidden,  it  is  never  dor- 
mant, and  never  wholly  fails.  Wordsworth 
beautifully  expresses  the  thought  in  its  more 
personal  application  in  lines  which  Gladstone 
used  to  quote: 

One  adequate  support 
For  the  calamities  of  mortal  life 
Exists — one  only:  an  assured  belief 
That  the  procession  of  our  fate,  howe'er 
Sad  or  disturbed,  is  ordered  by  a  Being 
Of  infinite  benevolence  and  power 
Whose  everlasting  purposes  embrace 
All  accidents,  converting  them  to  good. 


16  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

Huxley  showed  that  he  was  in  sympathy  with 
this  great  conception  (though  he  declared  the 
evidence  accessible  to  be  wholly  insufficient  to 
warrant  either  a  positive  or  a  negative  conclu- 
sion) when  he  wrote:  "If  the  doctrine  of 
Providence  is  to  be  taken  as  the  expression 
'in  a  way  to  be  understanded  of  the  people' 
of  the  total  exclusion  of  chance  from  a  place 
even  in  the  most  insignificant  corner  of  nature; 
if  it  means  the  strong  conviction  that  the  cosmic 
process  is  rational  and  the  faith  that  through- 
out all  duration  unbroken  order  has  reigned 
in  the  universe,  I  not  only  accept  it,  but  I  am 
disposed  to  think  it  the  most  important  of 
all  truths.  As  it  is  of  more  consequence  for  a 
citizen  to  know  the  law  than  to  be  personally 
acquainted  with  the  features  of  those  who  will 
surely  carry  it  into  effect,  so  this  very  positive 
doctrine  of  Providence,  in  the  sense  defined, 
seems  to  me  far  more  important  than  all  the 
theorems  of  speculative  theology.  If,  further, 
the  doctrine  is  held  to  imply  that  in  some  indefi- 
nitely remote  past  aeon,  the  cosmic  process  was 
set  going  by  some  entity  possessed  of  intelligence 
and  foresight,  similar  to  our  own  in  kind,  how- 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  17 

ever  superior  in  degree;  if  consequently  it  is 
held  that  every  event,  not  merely  in  our  plan- 
etary speck,  but  in  untold  millions  of  other 
worlds,  was  foreknown  before  the  worlds  were, 
scientific  thought,  so  far  as  I  know  anything 
about  it,  has  nothing  to  say  against  that  hypoth- 
esis. It  is  in  fact  an  anthropomorphic  rendering 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution. "  * 

What  light  does  modern  thought  throw  upon 
the  working  of  Divine  Providence,  not  only  in 
starting  off  the  process  in  long  aeons  past,  and 
foreknowing  its  every  issue,  but  in  shaping  its 
smallest  detail  to-day  ? 

(1)  Modern  thought  magnifies  beyond  hu- 
man grasp  the  sphere  of  the  Divine  activity. 
Truly  in  our  Father's  house  are  many  dwelling- 
places.  Men  have  grown  up  slowly  toward, 
they  are  far  from  attaining  yet,  a  fit  conception 
of  the  omnipresence,  the  vast  universal  interest 
and  energy  of  God.  The  God  of  the  Hebrews 
was  a  tribal  God;  he  was  their  God,  the  one 
true  God;  but  his  interests  were  local,  his  efforts 
confined  to  a  limited  area,  narrowed  by  antipa- 
thies and  resentments  like  their  own.    The  most 

♦  Huxley's  Life  and  Letters,"  Vol.  II,  p.  320. 


18  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

difficult  thing  for  Israel  to  learn  was  that  God 
cared  at  all  for  the  foreigner.  The  tendency  of 
men  always  has  been  to  assume  a  monopoly  of 
the  plan  and  the  care  of  God.  In  his  name  and 
for  his  glory  the  nations  have  gone  forth  to  kill 
one  another,  each  claiming  his  aid,  confident  of 
his  approval,  forgetful  as  a  rule  that  God  so 
loved  the  world,  that  his  interests  are  vast  and 
deep  as  the  sweep  of  human  need.  And  to-day, 
we  who  take  the  wider  view,  who  are  growing 
up  slowly  into  a  world-consciousness,  who  real- 
ize that  God's  thought  and  purpose  embrace 
the  distant  nations  and  the  alien  races,  are  apt 
to  forget  that  the  earth,  to  us  so  vast,  is  but  a 
speck  in  the  dominions  of  the  Eternal,  that 
whether  or  not  these  distant  realms,  whose 
number  no  man  can  count,  whose  dimensions 
no  man  can  conceive,  whose  distance  from  us 
surpasses  estimate,  be  peopled  with  beings  in  any 
way  like  us,  we  are  bound  to  them  by  the  kin- 
ship of  a  common  creation  and  a  common  care; 
their  wondrous  secret  is  the  present  thought  of 
God,  their  progress  his  toil,  there  as  here  God 
is  and  God  works.  What  new  meaning  the 
thought  gives  to  the  word  of  Jesus,  "My  Father 


UNIVERSITY  } 

OF  / 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  19 

worketh  hitherto."  Who  can  ponder  the 
vast  expanse  of  the  divine  thought  and  toil,  and 
not  be  impressed  anew  with  the  marvel  and 
mystery  of  the  universe,  and  the  infinite  great- 
ness of  Him  from  whom  it  comes,  whose  will  it 
wondrously  fulfils  ?  Who  in  the  presence  of 
such  a  greatness  does  not  feel  humbled,  is  not 
ready  to  say  with  Washington  Irving  that  the 
efforts  of  man  to  comprehend  Divine  Providence 
— to  set  limits  to  them,  and  say,  This  thou 
canst  do,  that  never — are  "like  the  efforts  of 
the  little  blind  mole  running  his  tiny  tunnels 
underground  to  comprehend  the  marching  and 
countermarching  of  armies  overhead.'3 

(2)  But  modern  thought  about  the  universe 
makes  easier  a  reasonable  faith  in  the  Providence 
of  God.  Men  who  thought  of  God  as  dwelling 
in  physical  form  on  a  great  throne  in  distant 
spaces  thought  less  consistently  of  his  daily 
contact  with  all  human  life;  but  men  who  be- 
gin to  realize  something  of  what  is  meant  by  the 
sublime  statement  that  God  is  Spirit,  who  feel 
increasingly  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  uni- 
verse, find  it  ever  easier  to  believe  that  he  who 
is  great  enough  to  be  the  God  of  the  infinite 


20  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

spaces  is  ever  present  in  the  life  of  the  world  and 
the  lives  of  his  children.  And  if  present,  then 
potent.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  God 
simply  as  a  presence,  a  mere  vapor,  inert,  pas- 
sive.   Where  God  is,  he  achieves. 

But  here  arise  some  difficulties  which  perplex 
many  an  earnest  mind.  One  asks,  does  not 
modern  thought  reveal  to  us  a  great  realm  of 
order  in  which  laws,  fixed,  relentless,  work  out 
their  sure  results;  where,  in  a  universe  of  law, 
is  the  place  of  a  benign  Providence  ?  The  an- 
swer, of  course,  is  that  law  and  Providence  are 
never  to  be  conceived  of  as  antagonistic,  that 
"the  course  of  nature  is  itself  providential,"  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect,  like  the  unfailing 
sequence  of  the  seasons,  a  part  of  the  kindness 
of  this  scheme  of  things,  through  which  man 
may  know  himself  and  the  world  around  him, 
and  shape  his  life,  and  do  his  work,  with  confi- 
dence. All  law  is  love;  all  love  is  law.  "The 
very  etymology  of  the  word,"  it  has  well  been 
said,  "should  have  taught  us  that  Providence  is 
not  afterthought,  but  forethought,  foreseeing 
and  consequent  foreordaining,  not  the  tinkering 
of  a  machine  so  clumsily  constructed  that  its 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  21 

working  fails  to  accomplish  its  designed  pur- 
pose, the  shoving  backward  or  forward  of  a 
clock  which  fails  to  keep  good  time,  but  the 
orderly  working  of  infinite  wisdom,  whose  eter- 
nal plans  need  no  modification  because  perfect 
always."  * 

But  what  of  special  providences  ?  If  by 
special  providences  we  mean  that  universal 
laws  are  ever  interfered  with  for  the  benefit  of 
the  individual,  no  such  conception  can  prevail 
in  this  age.  But  if  we  mean  that  for  each  man 
as  for  all  men  the  course  of  nature  is  providen- 
tial; if  we  mean,  with  Horace  Bushnell,  that 
every  man's  life  is  a  plan  of  God,  this  is  a 
thought  as  essential  to  any  just  conception  of 
the  majesty  of  God,  as  it  is  precious  to  the 
heart  of  man.  Here,  of  course,  some  find  diffi- 
culty. "The  God  whom  science  recognizes," 
we  are  told,  "must  be  a  God  of  universal  laws 
exclusively,  a  God  who  does  a  wholesale,  not  a 
retail  business.  He  cannot  accommodate  his 
processes  to  the  convenience  of  individuals."  "j* 

♦"Christian  Faith  in  an  Age  of  Science,"  by  Dr.  William 
North  Rice,  p.  338. 

t"  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,"  p.  496.  The  quota- 
tion does  not,  however,  express  Professor  James'  own  view. 


22  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

But  this  is  to  place  human  limitations  to  the 
work  of  God;  it  is  to  materialize  and  localize 
him,  and  assume  that  because  a  thing  is  difficult 
for  man  to  conceive,  it  is  impossible  for  God  to 
achieve.  Depend  upon  it,  the  Lord  God  Al- 
mighty does  thorough  work;  in  the  greatness  of 
his  toils  he  does  not  let  detail  escape  him.  "To 
the  Infinite  Intelligence,  all  and  each  are  alike 
present.  God  does  not  forget  details  in  gener- 
alizations, nor  lose  generalizations  in  details."  * 
But  where  in  a  human  life  is  the  sphere  of 
Providence  ?  If  my  life  is  a  plan  of  God, 
mapped  out  before  I  was  born,  where  do  I 
come  in  ?  This  is  the  problem,  old  as  the 
gropings  of  the  human  mind,  of  freewill  and 
foreordination.  The  answer  that  appeals  alike 
to  mind  and  heart  is  that  God  in  the  exercise 
of  his  Divine  sovereignty  and  love,  for  the 
achievement  of  his  great  creative  ends,  has 
given  to  man  the  sublime  gift  of  choice,  the 
image  of  the  Divine  within  him;  that  even 
God  cannot  compel  the  choices  of  a  free 
being;  that  the  plan  of  a  man's  life  is  not 
mapped  out  beyond  his  choices  once  long  ago 

♦  Dr.  Rice. 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  23 

by  a  distant  Power,  but  that  the  great  Planner 
is  ever  with  us  renewing,  reshaping  the  Plan, 
out  of  our  false  choices  making  for  us  fresh  op- 
portunities, with  wondrous  patience  working  out 
the  purposes  we  have  long  resisted,  bringing  the 
scattered  ends  of  life  into  a  glorious  unity,  say- 
ing to  us  with  every  dawning  day,  "Behold,  I 
make  all  things  new." 

That  there  is  the  least  reality  in  such  a  view, 
no  amount  of  argument  will  ever  convince.  The 
testimony  of  experience  alone  is  sure  and  strong. 
There  are  men  whose  testimony  on  other  things 
the  world  trusts  implicitly  whose  most  confident 
conviction  is  that  God  is  with  them.  They  are 
amazed  and  startled  often  by  the  evidences  of 
his  presence,  by  the  unfolding  in  their  lives  of 
a  plan  far  beyond  their  own.  Mysterious  helps 
come  to  them;  strange  guidances  point  the  way; 
they  seem  to  feel  in  all  life  the  touch  of  a  Hand, 
to  hear  the  whisper  of  a  still  small  voice.  Where 
others  speak  of  coincidences,  they  speak  of  God, 
and  echo  gratefully  the  Psalmist's  words,  "  I  am 
poor  and  needy,  yet  the  Lord  thinketh  upon  me." 

But  what  of  those  whose  lives  give  no  such 
testimony  ?    Two  things  are  to  be  remembered. 


24  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

(a)  Divine  Providence  is  never  to  be  asso- 
ciated only  with  strange  guidances,  mysterious 
helps,  marvellous  coincidences.  It  may  be 
associated  no  less  with  great  disappointments, 
sudden  shocks  of  sorrow,  dread  perplexities, 
awful  defeats.  Of  some  of  the  great  deliver- 
ances of  life  we  say  sometimes,  Things  were  at 
their  very  worst,  all  was  darkness  and  despair, 
when  suddenly  a  way  was  wonderfully  opened 
up,  a  great  light  flashed  upon  the  horizon,  and 
we  felt  that  God's  hand  was  in  it.  But  no  less 
truly  might  we  say  when  blow  after  blow  falls 
suddenly  in  a  dozen  directions,  and  the  life  that 
seemed  joyous  and  confident  is  rent  with  an- 
guish or  blighted  with  defeat,  This,  too,  is  God's 
hand,  driving  us  into  the  wilderness,  this,  too, 
his  voice,  saying,  "Quit  you  like  men,  be  strong; 
my  face  may  be  hidden,  but  I  will  never  leave 
you  nor  forsake  you."  A  great  soul  of  old  was 
called  wonderfully  out  of  the  darkness  of  blun- 
der and  folly  into  the  sunshine  of  faith  and 
hope.  As  he  puzzled  out  his  new  life-problem, 
a  messenger  of  God  was  sent  to  him,  and  this 
was  the  message,  "I  will  show  him  how  great 
things  he  must  suffer  for  my  name's  sake/' 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  25 

There  was  no  room  for  the  Saviour  of  the  world 
at  his  birth;  he  went  by  a  lonely  and  thorny 
way  to  a  cross.  Life  as  God  plans  it  is  never  to 
be  identified  with  the  life  of  ease  and  prosperity; 
the  gathering  storm  is  in  it  no  less  than  the 
clearing  path. 

(b)  There  is  rich  suggestion  in  the  remark  of 
R.  H.  Hutton  that  God's  providences  work 
largely  in  the  sphere  of  the  choices.  "The 
minds  that  are  alive  to  every  word  from  God, 
give  constant  opportunity  for  his  divine  inter- 
ference with  a  suggestion  that  may  alter  the 
course  of  their  lives;  and  like  the  ship  which 
turns  when  the  steersman's  hand  but  touches  the 

lb 

wheel,  God  can  steer  them  through  the  worst 
dangers  by  the  faintest  breath  of  feeling,  or  the 
lightest  touch  of  thought."  *  This  is  the  old 
word  of  the  Psalmist:  "  The  secret  of  the  Lord 
is  with  them  that  fear  him";  it  is  the  word  of 
Jesus,  "He  that  wills  to  do  God's  will  shall 
know."  The  man  who  resolutely  chooses  God's 
will  finds  it  ever  more  perfectly;  the  life  which 
is  eagerly  sensitive  to  the  divine  touch  feels  and 
follows  that  touch  ever  more  confidently. 

*  "  Theological  Essays,"  p.  81. 


IV 

PRAYER  IN  A  WORLD  OF  LAW 

"1X7'HAT  is  the  place  of  prayer  in  the  life  of 
the  man  who  feels  himself  to  be  living  in 
a  great  universe  of  law  in  which,  with  unchang- 
ing order,  the  same  causes  or  combinations  of 
causes  always  produce  the  same  effects  ?  At 
once,  of  course,  we  have  to  rid  ourselves  of  the 
thought  that  prayer  is  in  any  degree  antagonistic 
to  law.  Men  have  been  wont  to  think  of  them- 
selves as  living  in  the  presence  of  two  great  classes 
of  phenomena,  the  natural,  the  common  order, 
the  expected  sequence  of  events,  and  the  super- 
natural, the  abnormal,  the  prodigious.  In  his 
government  of  the  universe  God,  it  has  been 
assumed,  has  detailed  certain  work  to  subor- 
dinates called  laws;  but  ever  and  anon  they  fail 
of  their  purpose,  they  get  things  all  mixed  up, 
they  rend  and  tear  the  hearts  of  men,  and  so,  in 
response  to  his  children's  cry,  God  sets  them 
aside,   and  steps  himself  into  the  fray.     Now 

modern  thought  about  the  universe,  and  the  In- 

26 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  27 

finite  Spirit  who  in  it  is  ever-present,  ever-po- 
tent, conceives  all  this  very  differently.  It  is  not 
that  the  reality  of  the  phenomena  commonly 
classed  as  supernatural  is  for  a  moment  ques- 
tioned— those  inexplicable  happenings,  those 
providential  guidances,  those  remarkable  an- 
swers to  prayer.  Far  from  it.  Rather  is  their 
sphere  broadened,  and  their  foundation  deep- 
ened and  strengthened.  But  the  conception  of 
two  antagonistic  methods  in  the  universe — 
law  and  Providence,  nature  and  the  supernat- 
ural— is  dismissed.  We  begin  to  see  that  the 
course  of  nature  is  itself  providential,  that  law  is 
love,  that  the  supernatural  is  not  the  abnormal 
but  the  supernormal,  the  higher-natural;  those 
perfectly  natural  self-expressions  of  the  Infinite 
Spirit  of  Life  which  the  mind  of  man  groping 
dimly  toward  the  light  is  as  yet  too  blind  to 
conceive. 

There  follows  at  once  from  this  a  different 
conception  of  the  spirit,  the  atmosphere,  of 
prayer  from  that  which  men  have  sometimes 
held.  True  prayer  does  not  ask  God  to  set  aside 
his  laws,  to  interfere  with  the  normal  sequence 
of  events.    There  is  a  striking  definition  in  one 


28  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

of  the  novels  of  George  Meredith  which  goes  to 
the  very  heart  of  the  matter.  "Prayer,"  he 
says,  "is  the  recognition  of  law."  That  is  true. 
At  the  heart  of  all  true  prayer  is  the  assent  of  the 
soul  to  the  unbroken  order  of  the  universe,  its 
sublimest  utterance,  "Thy  will  be  done."  Have 
you  noticed  the  habitual  recognition  of  law  in 
the  sayings  of  Jesus  about  prayer  ?  "If"  is  the 
keynote  of  these  sayings.  "  If  ye  abide  in  me, 
and  my  words  abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye 
will,  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you."  "Ye  have 
not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  you,  and  or- 
dained you,  that  ye  should  go  and  bring  forth 
fruit,  and  that  your  fruit  should  remain,  that 
whatsoever  ye  shall  ask  of  the  Father  in  my 
name  he  may  give  it  to  you."  "He  that  believ- 
eth  on  me,  whatsoever  he  shall  ask  in  my  name, 
that  will  I  do."  That  is  to  say,  if  my  spirit  is  in 
you,  if  in  you  my  words  have  become  flesh,  the 
very  longings  of  God  will  be  yours,  and  they 
cannot  fail.  The  life  whose  passion  it  is  to  bear 
fruit,  to  push  on  somewhere  the  great  work  of 
God,  will  ask  the  things  which  God  is  far  more 
eager  to  give.  "Prayer,"  says  Dr.  George 
Albert  Coe,  "is  the  process  of  identifying  our 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  29 

will  and  whatever  effectiveness  we  may  have  in 
the  world  with  the  will  and  work  of  God." 
"The  reason,"  said  Henry  Drummond,  "why 
so  many  people  get  nothing  from  prayer  is  that 
they  expect  effects  without  causes,  and  this  is 
also  the  reason  why  they  give  it  up.  True 
prayer  for  any  promise  is  to  plead  for  power  to 
fulfil  the  condition  on  which  it  is  offered  and 
which  being  fulfilled  it  is  in  that  act  given." 
A  man  never  prays  until  at  the  heart  of  his 
prayer  is  the  assent  of  his  soul  to  the  unbroken 
order  of  the  universe,  the  desire  that  he  may 
take  the  place  in  it  God  means  for  him  humbly, 
bravely,  completely,  the  longing  that  in  his  life 
God's  will  may  be  wholly  done.  Prayer  is  the 
recognition  of  law. 

But  does  not  this  conception  limit  greatly  the 
scope  of  prayer  ?  It  does  limit  somewhat  the 
scope  of  our  asking,  but  it  immeasurably  ex- 
tends the  range  of  our  receiving.  The  man  who 
has  such  a  thought  of  prayer  as  this  cannot  ask 
God  to  set  aside  the  order  of  the  universe  for 
his  convenience,  or  to  save  him  from  the  effects 
of  his  own  folly.  For  this  reason  Charles  Kings- 
ley  refused  to  pray  for  the  stay  of  the  cholera 


30  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

epidemic  in  his  time;  it  was  the  effect  of  men's 
filth  and  indolence,  and  they  should  take  the 
consequences.  Many  a  man  has  gone  to  his 
knees  when  he  should  have  gone  to  the  axe  and 
the  disinfectant.  The  man  who  has  such  a 
thought  of  prayer  cannot  argue  with  God  in 
prayer,  try  to  convince  him  that  he  is  wrong, 
counsel  him  confidently  as  to  the  conduct  of  the 
universe  or  of  a  human  life.  Such  prayer  is 
"teasing,  not  trusting."  But  how  vastly  the 
higher  thought  of  prayer  expands  the  range  of 
our  receiving,  for  it  brings  us  into  touch  with 
the  interests,  not  of  one  or  two  human  lives  alone, 
but  of  all,  not  with  our  own  poor  plans  alone, 
but  with  God's,  it  makes  the  achievement  of  his 
work,  the  progress  of  his  kingdom,  and  not  the 
getting  of  bread  for  our  own  hungry  lives,  the 
ever-broadening  interest,  the  ever-deepening 
longing  of  our  hearts.  And  is  it  not  just  this 
which  many  a  man's  life  needs  above  all  else — 
not  the  fulfilment  of  this  petty  plan  and  that — 
but  a  broadening  interest,  a  larger  outlook,  a  real 
grip  upon  the  universal  sympathy  and  interest 
of  God  in  Christ  ? 

It  may  be  asked,  is  there  not  in  this  thought 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  31 

of  prayer  a  limitation  larger  than  any  which  has 
yet  been  mentioned  ?  If  we  are  living  in  a  uni- 
verse of  unbroken  order,  if  causes  always  pro- 
duce effects,  if  God  cannot  be  expected  to 
change  his  plan  to  please  us,  why  pray  at  all  ? 
Did  not  Jesus  say,  "Your  Father  knoweth  what 
ye  have  need  of  before  ye  ask  him"  ?  Yes,  but 
he  also  said,  "When  ye  pray,  say,  our  Father," 
and  the  greatest  of  all  his  followers  said,  "Never 
cease  to  pray."  But  why  ?  For  answer,  I  might 
remind  you  of  the  great  limitations  of  our 
knowledge,  of  our  weakness,  our  sense  of  need, 
our  longing  many  a  day  for  strength,  for  guid- 
ance beyond  our  own.  Shall  not  this  passionate 
hunger  of  the  soul  find  utterance  ?  I  might  call 
the  roll  of  the  mighty  men  of  achievement  who 
have  also  been  men  of  prayer — Gladstone,  with 
his  unfailing  morning  hour,  saying  to  his  inti- 
mates in  the  hour  of  political  crisis,  "What  we 
need  is  more  prayer,  more  prayer";  Chinese 
Gordon,  with  the  white  handkerchief  before  his 
tent  which  told  that  then  he  must  be  undis- 
turbed; Wesley,  of  whom  it  was  said  that  he 
was  much  in  the  upper  room;  Matthew  Henry, 
confessing,  "I  forgot  to  ask  special  prayer  on 


32  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

the  day's  work,  and  so  the  chariot  wheels  drove 
heavily."  I  might  speak  of  the  great  institu- 
tions, such  as  those  of  Muller  and  Barnardo  and 
Quarrier,  which  have  been  built  up  on  and  sus- 
tained by  prayer.  I  might  quote  such  a  testi- 
mony to  prayer,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  sci- 
entific psychologist,  as  that  of  the  late  F.  W. 
H.  Myers.  A  friend  wrote  asking  him  what, 
candidly,  he  thought  about  prayer,  and  this  is 
what  he  says:  "I  am  glad  you  have  asked  me 
about  prayer,  because  I  have  rather  strong  ideas 
about  the  subject.  First,  consider  what  are  the 
facts.  There  exists  around  us  a  spiritual  uni- 
verse, and  that  universe  is  in  actual  relation  with 
the  material.  From  the  spiritual  universe  comes 
the  energy  which  maintains  the  material,  the 
energy  which  makes  the  life  of  each  individual 
spirit.  Our  spirits  are  supported  by  a  perpetual 
indrawal  of  energy,  and  the  vigor  of  that  in- 
drawal  is  perpetually  changing,  much  as  the 
vigor  of  our  absorption  of  material  nutriment 
changes  from  hour  to  hour.  I  call  these  facts 
because  I  think  that  some  scheme  of  this  kind  is 
the  only  one  consistent  with  our  actual  evidence. 
How,    then,    should    we    act   on    these   facts? 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  33 

Plainly  we  must  endeavor  to  draw  in  as  much 
spiritual  life  as  possible,  and  we  must  place  our 
minds  in  any  attitude  which  experience  shows 
to  be  favorable  to  such  indrawal.  Prayer  is  the 
general  name  for  the  attitude  of  open  and  ear- 
nest expectancy;  it  is  not  a  purely  subjective 
thing;  in  it  spiritual  power  or  grace  flows  in 
from  the  infinite  spiritual  world." 

But  the  best  answer  I  know  to  the  question, 
why  pray  ?,  the  answer  which  never  fails  to  sat- 
isfy the  man  who  has  made  it  his  own,  is  this: 
Prayer  is  not  simply  the  recognition  of  law; 
prayer  is  the  recognition  of  love,  the  love  that  is 
in  all  law,  the  love  that  is  in  all  life.  The  secret 
of  all  true  prayer,  the  unfailing  rule  for  its  ex- 
ercise and  interpretation,  was  given  by  Jesus 
when  he  said,  "When  ye  pray,  say  our  Father." 
We  fathers  know  what  is  good  for  our  children 
much  better  than  they  do,  why  should  they  pre- 
sume to  tell  us  ?  A  sad  day  it  would  be  for  all 
of  us  when  our  children  ceased  to  come  running 
to  us  with  their  childish  wants  and  troubles, 
which  are  often  so  very  foolish,  for  their  coming 
is  the  expression  of  the  love  which  is  our  very 
life,  and  of  the  trust  which  is  our  joy.    And  so, 


34  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

when  the  cannibal  chief,  of  whom  James  Chal- 
mers tells  us,  prays  "We  much  want  tobacco, 
calico,  and  tomahawks  and  knives,"  I  am  sure 
it  pleases  God  even  as  it  pleases  us,  for  it  is  the 
foolish  child  coming  to  his  wise  Father,  and  by 
and  by,  coming  often  to  that  Father,  he  will  know 
better  what  to  ask.  And  when  the  child  of  whom 
Dr.  George  A.  Coe  tells  us,  seeing  a  storm  com- 
ing that  will  stop  his  play,  kneels  upon  the  lawn 
and  prays  that  it  may  not  rain,  it  is  prayer,  for 
it  is  the  child  coming  to  his  Father,  the  child 
making  the  truly  Christian  assumption  that 
God  is  interested  in  the  games  of  childhood. 
And  when  the  farmer  prays  for  rain  for  his 
wheatfield,  though  the  order  of  nature  is  un- 
changed by  his  words,  still  this  is  prayer,  for  by 
it  the  man  assumes  a  relation  of  conscious  de- 
pendence and  trust  toward  God,  and  by  bring- 
ing his  daily  occupation  to  God  attains  to  some- 
thing greater  than  wheat.*  I  must  come  to  God 
with  my  poor  little  human  prayers  because  he  is 
my  Father  and  I  am  his  child,  and  if  I  do  not 
speak  to  him,  nor  he  to  me,  the  sweet  relation  is 
lost.    He  is  no  more  my  Father,  nor  I  his  child. 

*  See  Dr.  Coe's  "  Religion  of  a  Mature  Mind,"  p.  357. 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  35 

And  I  may  ask  him  for  anything  I  like,  because 
he  is  my  Father,  but  coming  to  him  often  I 
learn,  as  our  children  soon  learn  with  us,  that 
there  are  many  things  it  is  useless  to  ask,  that 
the  things  best  for  me  are  the  things  my  loving 
Father  longs  to  give;  that  the  best  prayer  is 
prayer  that  I  may  know  what  these  are,  and  de- 
sire them  above  all,  and  love  and  trust  him  more 
and  more.  For  the  best  prayer  is  not  asking  for 
things,  it  is  the  quiet,  creative  hour  when  the 
child  is  alone  with  his  Father,  seeking  his  guid- 
ance, receiving  his  strength,  resting  in  his  infinite 
love. 

And  yet  this  is  not  the  last  word  about  prayer. 
The  most  Christlike  prayer  is  prayer  for  others, 
that  God's  will  may  be  done  in  them,  that  in  the 
world  they  may  be  kept  from  the  stain  of  the 
world,  that  they  may  be  comforted  in  sorrow, 
upheld  in  toil,  guided  into  the  fullest  fruition  of 
their  lives.  Such  prayer  is  not  simply  the  nor- 
mal utterance  of  Christian  faith  and  love;  it 
achieves  wondrous  results;  in  it  space  is  anni- 
hilated, and  soul  touches  soul.  Devout  men 
have  always  believed  this.  Many  a  man  has  felt 
around  him  all  his  life  an  impelling,  restraining 


36  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

influence  which  he  has  ascribed  to  his  mother's 
prayers;  in  moments  of  moral  peril  he  has  felt 
himself  arrested  as  by  an  unseen  hand.  The 
great  missionary  movement  has  been  built  up 
largely  upon  the  prayers  of  the  faithful. 

"Away  in  foreign  fields  they  wondered  how 
Their  simple  word  had  power; 
At  home  the  Christians,  two  or  three, 
Had  met  to  pray  an  hour." 

To-day  modern  conceptions  alike  of  the  uni- 
verse and  of  the  individual  make  easier  the  faith 
that  such  prayer  is  a  positive  force.  True,  we 
are  just  reaching  the  first  outlook  upon  an  un- 
known country;  what  wonders  are  beyond  no 
man  knows.  But  the  glimpses  already  opening 
to  the  vision — the  self  beneath  the  sphere  of 
consciousness  where  some  tell  us  spirit  has  its 
meeting-place  with  spirit,  and  God  with  man; 
the  new  emphasis  upon  mental  suggestion,  in 
healing  diseases  alike  of  the  body  and  the  mind; 
the  reality  of  telepathic  communication,  which 
is  probably  the  one  thing  thus  far  fully  estab- 
lished by  psychic  research  —  all  these  aid 
the  belief  that  when  I  pray  for  my  friend  I  am 
touching  him  with   spiritual   energy;    when   I 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  37 

suggest  to  him,  even  if  he  be  distant  from  me, 
that  he  can  conquer  his  weakness,  that  he  can 
rise  above  his  sorrow,  that  all  things  are  possi- 
ble to  him  that  believeth,  I  am  helping  to  bring 
spiritual  forces  at  least  within  his  reach,  I  am 
pleading  for  that  very  faith  which  the  Master 
always  required  ere  his  love  wrought  its  won- 
drous work.  There  is  no  peril  in  this  of  what 
some  may  call  a  mere  naturalism,  the  apparent 
identification  of  God  with  the  forces  of  the  uni- 
verse and  the  latent  resources  of  the  human 
spirit.  The  man  who  is  most  keenly  conscious 
of  the  spiritual  energies  around  and  within  him, 
most  eager  to  be  a  channel  through  which  they 
may  work,  will  never  lose  in  them  the  Infinite 
Spirit  of  Life  who  is  great  enough  to  have 
brought  them  into  being;  as  he  seeks  to  awaken 
the  latent  resources  of  his  own  and  his  brother's 
spirit,  he  will  realize  gratefully  that  by  far  the 
greatest  of  these  resources,  from  which  none 
that  is  strong  and  sure  can  ever  for  a  moment  be 
separated,  is  God  himself  in  the  human  soul. 

To  many  a  Christian  the  offering  of  prayer 
"through  Jesus  Christ,,  is  no  formal  use  of  an 
empty  phrase.    He  so  prays  because  he  sees  God 


38  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  because  Jesus  has 
led  him  into  a  new  understanding  of  the  mean- 
ing and  the  power  of  prayer;  most  of  all  it  is 
his  thought  that  his  prayer  should  pass  through 
the  very  heart  of  Christ  up  to  the  Infinite  and 
out  to  his  brother,  because  he  realizes  that  the 
prayer  that  is  purified  by  the  Master's  spirit  of 
self-surrender,  of  obedience,  of  perfect  love, 
unites  itself  with  the  Divine  will  and  is  bound 
to  triumph. 

Such  a  conception  of  prayer  as  this  of  course 
leaves  many  unanswered  questions.  But  that 
by  prayer  life  is  linked  with  life,  the  might  of 
God  with  the  weakness  of  man,  is  in  these  days 
a  reasonable  and  a  great  working  faith. 


MIRACLES  IN  A  SCIENTIFIC  AGE 

[N  a  credulous  age,  miracles  were  the  fore- 
most evidence  of  Christianity;  to-day,  to 
many  minds,  they  are  among  the  greatest  of 
religious  difficulties,  while  others  dismiss  them 
wholly  from  their  thought.  "There  is  nothing," 
says  Matthew  Arnold,  "one  would  more  desire 
for  a  person  or  a  doctrine  one  greatly  values 
than  to  make  them  independent  of  miracle." 

What  is  a  miracle  ?  In  the  simplest  sense  of 
the  word,  a  miracle  is  a  wonder,  a  wonderful 
thing,  that  is  all.  In  the  restricted  sense  in 
which  we  commonly  use  the  word,  a  miracle  is 
a  departure  from  the  known  laws  of  nature,  a 
startling  deviation  from  the  common  sequence 
of  events.  From  this  definition  two  things  fol- 
low: (i)  Miracle  is  not  necessarily  a  departure 
from  law,  but  from  known  law;  it  is  not  neces- 
sarily an  interference  with  the  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  the  calling  in  of  a  higher  law.  With 
this  view  it  is  possible  to  define  a  miracle 
accurately  as  "a  divine  restoration  of  the  true 

39 


4o  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

order  of  nature."  *  (2)  The  miracle  of  yester- 
day is  the  commonplace  of  to-day.  Had  I  told 
a  friend  fifty  years  ago  that,  sitting  in  my  study, 
I  had  that  day  talked  with  a  man  a  hundred 
miles  away,  or  that  I  had  just  heard  from  a 
friend  in  midocean,  I  would  have  been  deemed 
untruthful,  insane,  or  a  worker  of  miracles; 
but  to-day  the  statement  awakens  no  surprise. 

Let  it  be  clear,  then,  that  in  the  light  of  mod- 
ern knowledge  of  the  universe,  there  is  no  diffi- 
culty about  miracles  simply  on  account  of 
their  marvellousness.  In  epoch-making  words 
Huxley  made  this  very  clear:  "Whoso  clearly 
appreciates  all  that  is  implied  in  the  falling  of  a 
stone  can  have  no  difficulty  about  any  doctrine 
simply  on  account  of  its  marvellousness.,,  "I 
am  too  much  a  believer  with  Butler  that  there 
is  no  absurdity  in  theology  so  great  that  you 
cannot  parallel  it  by  a  far  greater  absurdity  of 
Nature  to  have  any  difficulty  about  miracles." 
And  again,  "Science  offers  us  much  greater 
marvels  than  the  miracles  of  theology,  only  the 
evidence   for  them   is  very  different."  f    "Sci- 

*  Stearns,  "Present  Day  Theology,"  p.  63. 

t Huxley's  "Life  and  Letters,"  vol.  i,  211,  227,  etc. 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  41 


>>  L.  '^  (< 


ence,  says  a  recent  writer,  recognizes  no  mir- 
acle because  all  the  world  has  become  mirac- 
ulous." * 

So  much  for  the  possibility  of  miracle.  In 
the  presence  of  the  infinite  vastness  of  the  phe- 
nomena with  which  he  deals,  the  observer  of 
reverent  spirit  stands  humbled,  feels  profoundly 
the  limitation  of  his  knowledge,  and  hesitates  to 
say  of  any  wonderful  thing,  It  could  not  be. 
It  is  needless  to  assume  that  the  processes  of 
nature  as  he  who  made  them  knows  them,  are 
so  clumsy  and  ineffective  that  he  has  ever  to  go 
beyond  them  to  effect  his  ends.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  alike  presumptuous  and  illogi- 
cal to  assume  that  in  the  common  order  of  the 
universe  as  known  to  men,  the  Infinite  Spirit 
has  exhausted  his  resources ;  sane  and  reason- 
able is  it  rather  to  believe  that  the  latent  forces 
which  man  is  gradually  finding  and  making  his 
own  are  but  a  few  of  the  infinite  powers  of  the 
exhaustless  power  of  God. 

The  real  question  is  not,  are  miracles   pos- 
sible, but  have  miracles  happened  ?     Was  the 

♦"Christian  Theology  in  Outline,"    William   Adams   Brown, 
p.  228. 


42  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

advent  of  Christianity  heralded  and  accom- 
panied by  the  working  of  inexplicable  wonders  ? 
Now,  there  are  two  avenues  of  approach  to  this 
question.  One  is  to  go  to  Christ  through  the 
miracles,  because  of  them  to  believe  in  him. 
The  other  method  is  to  go  to  the  miracles 
through  Christ,  because  of  him  to  look  at  them. 
The  first  method  no  longer  appeals  to  our  age. 
We  recall  at  once  that  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus 
was  lived  in  a  credulous,  unscientific  age,  in 
which  the  air  was  peopled  with  ghosts  and  de- 
mons, and  the  more  marvellous  a  thing  was  the 
more  ready  men  were  to  believe  it.  We  recall 
that  all  religions,  and  especially  the  lives  of  their 
founders  and  great  leaders,  have  been  associated 
with  stories  of  wonder-working.  We  recall  that 
some  of  the  records  of  the  Old  Testament  mira- 
cles were  written  centuries  after  the  events  they 
describe,  and  that  a  large  legendary  element 
may  have  entered  into  them;  and  that  even  the 
New  Testament  stories  may  well  have  been  em- 
bellished by  tradition  ere  they  were  written  down 
for  ages  to  come.  In  a  word,  this  method  quickly 
brings  us  into  a  fog  of  uncertainty  and  doubt. 
Take,  then,  the  other  method.     But  first,  in 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  43 

deference  to  our  pride  of  mind,  let  us  make  sin- 
cerely the  effort  to  banish  the  miraculous  from 
Christian  faith,  and  see  where  it  issues.  Must  we 
not  begin  at  one  sweep  with  the  character  of 
Jesus,  for  he  is  himself  the  greatest  of  his  mira- 
cles ?  The  noblest  souls  of  the  ages,  as  they 
bowed  before  God,  have  felt  ever  the  great  gulf 
that  separated  them  from  the  Infinite;  they  have 
felt  keenly  their  sinfulness  and  unworthiness. 
But  here  is  One,  humble  in  spirit,  selfless  in  life, 
the  sanest  soul  of  the  centuries,  who  dares  to 
say,  "I  do  always  the  things  that  please  him," 
"I  and  the  Father  are  one";  and  after  nineteen 
centuries  of  research  and  criticism  the  testimony 
of  the  ages  is  that  of  Pilate  of  old,  "We  find  in 
him  no  fault."  In  kindred  words  this  testimony 
was  given  by  Matthew  Arnold,  who  will  not  be 
classed  commonly  as  an  orthodox  Christian, 
"Jesus  himself  is  an  absolute;  we  cannot  ex- 
plain him;  he  is  the  perfection  of  an  ideal."  If 
the  miraculous  goes,  the  character  of  Jesus,  the 
ideal  of  the  centuries,  is  a  delusion,  for  it  is  an 
interference  with  the  common  order,  it  is 
wholly  beyond  the  experience  that  leaves  him 
out.    And  of  course  his  resurrection  goes.    It  is 


44  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

one  of  the  best-attested  facts  of  human  history. 
It  is  impossible,  without  it,  to  conceive  what 
changed  those  blind,  timid,  self-seeking  friends 
of  his  into  strong,  resourceful  apostles,  men 
with  a  message  ever  clear,  ready  to  suffer,  ready 
any  day  to  die  for  it,  and  for  him.  It  is  impos- 
sible, without  it,  to  account  intelligently  for  the 
survival  of  Christianity.  "  If  Christ  be  not  risen 
your  faith  is  vain."  But  if  the  miraculous  goes, 
the  resurrection  goes.  And  this  is  but  the  be- 
ginning. All  the  most  cherished  convictions  of 
Christian  faith — the  Divine  guidance  of  indi- 
vidual lives,  the  reality  and  the  worth  of  prayer 
— are,  as  far  as  man's  knowledge  of  the  proc- 
esses of  nature  goes,  miraculous;  they  are  be- 
yond the  common  order,  a  departure  from 
known  law.  What  is  left?  "Let  us  eat  and 
drink  and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow  we  die." 

Rather  let  us  begin  with  Jesus.  What  do  we 
find  ?  The  Master  is  no  mere  wonder-worker, 
playing  with  infinite  powers,  "omnipotence  let 
loose."  Urged  again  and  again  to  do  some 
showy  trick  that  men  might  be  sure  of  his 
claims — to  leap  from  the  temple  roof  upon  the 
pavement  beneath,  to  make  stones  into  bread, 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  45 

to  give  a  sign  of  some  kind — he  declines,  saying: 
"Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God." 
He  manifests  no  pride  in  his  works,  ascribes 
them  all  to  God,  tells  men  if  they  can  but  lay 
hold  on  God  they  can  do  all  these  things,  and 
greater,  too.  "The  Father  that  dwelleth  in  me 
he  doeth  the  works/'  "He  that  believeth  on  me, 
the  works  that  I  do  shall  he  do  also,  and  greater 
works  than  these  shall  he  do."  True,  at  times 
he  appeals  to  the  works  as  an  evidence  of  his  mis- 
sion, as  when,  to  comfort  his  discouraged  fore- 
runner, he  said,  "Go  tell  John  what  things  ye 
have  seen  and  heard:  the  blind  see,  the  lame 
walk,  the  lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the 
dead  are  raised  up."  But  this  is  not  their  pur- 
pose; they  are  not  mere  wonders,  but  works, 
the  outflow  of  divine  sympathy  in  the  presence 
of  human  suffering  and  need.  His  miracles  are 
a  consistent  part  of  his  redemptive  work,  the  fit- 
ting expression  of  his  love;  when  we  read  of  him 
at  the  wedding  feast  in  Cana,  in  the  home  of 
the  centurion,  by  the  bier  of  the  widow's  son,  we 
feel  a  perfect  sense  of  harmony  between  the 
man  and  the  work;  the  heart  responds,  "It  was 
just  like  him." 


46  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

But  this  is  the  Christ  of  history.  What  of  the 
Christ  of  experience  ?  I  know  intimately  a  man 
who  for  years  was  a  victim  of  the  liquor  habit. 
He  drank  degradation  to  the  dregs.  The  habit 
cost  him  friends,  position,  health,  all  on  earth 
but  a  mother's  love  and  a  mother's  prayers. 
Again  and  again  he  tried  to  reform,  again  and 
again  sadly  failed.  Child  of  a  cultured  home, 
this  man,  tottering  in  limb,  shattered  in  spirit, 
drifted  one  day  for  food  and  lodging  into  a  res- 
cue home.  A  Christ-guided  hand  was  laid  upon 
him.  "Do  you  really  want  to  reform  ?"  said  the 
stranger.  "I  do,  but  it's  no  use."  "Have  you 
ever  asked  Christ  to  help  you  ?"  "I  have  not." 
They  spoke  of  Christ,  they  knelt  and  prayed,  the 
stranger  first  and  then  the  poor  weak  man.  In 
that  hour  he  received  not  simply  new  purpose — 
that  he  had  often  had  before — but  cleansing 
power.  "My  appetite  was  taken  away,"  he 
says;  "I  have  never  since  wanted  to  drink." 
If  this  be  true,  and  he  is  a  very  sane  fellow,  who 
for  years  now  has  given  his  leisure  to  work  for 
men  who  are  a*s  he  was,  it  was  a  miracle  as  won- 
derful as  any  of  the  wonders  of  Scripture.  An- 
other man  was  for  years  bowed  to  the  dust  by 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  47 

a  great  sorrow;  duty  only  deadened  it;  friends 
were  kind  and  sympathetic,  but,  ah,  they  did 
not  understand;  now  he  has  learned  habitually 
to  look  to  Christ,  to  think  of  him,  to  pray  to  him; 
somehow  the  look  always  brings  courage  and  a 
new  hope;  his  smile  returns,  his  step  brightens, 
his  heart  can  find  a  song — he  does  not  wonder 
at  the  miracles.  Another  lived  only  to  get;  to 
this  end  every  effort  of  his  life  went  forth;  it 
meant  incessant  struggle,  restless  fear,  bitter 
enmity,  a  prize  ever  sought  and  never  found. 
Then  he  learned  of  Christ  to  give,  a  very  simple 
change — new  direction  in  life,  a  different  way; 
but  so  marvellous  the  change  it  has  wrought  in 
the  whole  sweep  of  his  life  and  in  his  own  heart 
that  to  him  all  the  wonder-working  of  old  seems 
but  a  poor  outward  thing  compared  to  the  mira- 
cle that  has  been  wrought  of  Christ  in  him. 

So  is  it  ever.  Begin  sincerely  with  Christ, 
and  all  else  in  this  world  of  mystery  begins  to 
have  upon  it  the  morning  light.  Of  course,  in 
face  of  the  miracles  of  old,  the  Christian  will  not 
silence  his  thinking  function,  or  accept  anything 
because  it  is  associated  with  the  name  of  Jesus. 
He  will  not  be  blind  to  the  human  element  in  the 


48  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

Scriptures;  he  will  not  forget  the  wealth  of  Ori- 
ental imagery  and  symbolism,  so  unlike  our 
matter-of-fact  Western  forms  of  speech.  But  as 
he  is  led  of  Christ  into  the  greatness  of  the  Di- 
vine Plan  and  the  marvel  of  the  Divine  Love,  it 
will  seem  to  him  ever  less  strange  that  in  that 
crude  age  when  first  the  law  was  given,  by 
strange  signs  the  Divine  presence  was  attested; 
or  that  when  first  the  prophets  spoke,  by  deeds 
as  well  as  by  words  men  were  summoned  to  hear; 
or,  most  of  all,  that  when  the  great  Revelation 
of  Love  was  given,  when  at  last  a  human  life 
perfectly  responded  to  the  will  and  fully  did  the 
work  of  God,  in  his  presence  latent  forces  of  the 
universe  sprang  into  action,  and  all  nature  felt 
upon  it  the  touch  of  a  Master  hand. 

In  a  working  theology,  the  test  of  the  miracles 
is  a  very  simple  one.  The  miracles  that  seem  to 
the  Christian  to  be  like  Christ,  outpourings  of 
his  love,  manifestations  of  his  spirit,  he  will 
gratefully  accept,  and  love  to  read  about;  those 
that  seem  to  him  unlike  the  Master,  trivial,  arbi- 
trary, the  will  put  unhesitatingly  from  his 
thought,  awaiting  upon  them  the  light  of  a 
clearer   day.   The   counsel   of  the   old    Scotch 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  49 

preacher,  "Let  us  look  the  difficulty  in  the  face, 
and  pass  on,"  was  very  wise,  a  frank  recognition 
of  comparative  values,  a  refusal  to  discredit  the 
sunlight  because  for  the  moment  some  pinhead 
obstruction  blinds  the  eyes. 


VI 


THE  BIBLE   IN  THE   LIGHT   OF  MODERN  REVE- 
LATION AND  INSPIRATION 

npHERE  has  been  suggested  constantly  in 
these  chapters  the  new  dignity  of  the  nat- 
ural. Of  old,  men  were  apt  to  think  of  God  as 
active  mainly  in  the  abnormal,  the  occasional, 
the  supernatural.  Jonathan  Edwards  used  to 
open  his  windows  in  a  thunder-storm;  the  at- 
mosphere was  so  full  of  God,  he  said.  To-day 
we  begin  to  realize  that  God  is  at  work  in  every 
blade  of  grass  as  in  the  earthquake  and  the 
thunderbolt,  in  the  commonplaces  of  life  as  in 
its  crises;  that  the  laws  of  nature,  being  his 
workmanship,  cannot  well  be  the  clumsy  and 
ineffective  weapons  of  his  will,  requiring  peri- 
odically to  be  superseded,  which  men  have 
sometimes  supposed;  that  the  supernatural  so- 
called  is  simply  the  supernormal,  the  higher- 
natural,  those  perfectly  natural  self-expressions 
of  the  Infinite  Spirit  which  the  mind  of  man, 
struggling  toward  the  truth,  is  as  yet  too  dull  to 

understand. 

50 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  51 

Now  nowhere  is  the  new  dignity  of  the  nat- 
ural more  manifest  than  in  our  modern  thought 
about  the  Bible.  Many  devout  Christians  have 
been  much  troubled  by  the  newer  teaching;  it 
has  seemed  to  them  that  the  authority  of  the 
Scriptures  was  questioned,  their  truthfulness 
impeached,  their  value  denied.  But  to-day  we 
are  coming  to  see  that  the  sum  of  the  best  mod- 
ern thought  about  the  Bible  is  this,  that  the 
Bible  is  an  infinitely  more  natural  book  than 
men  have  sometimes  thought  it,  and  for  this 
very  reason  a  far  more  precious  and  powerful 
book  than  otherwise  in  these  days  it  could  be. 
It  is  not  that  there  is  less  of  God  in  the  Bible, 
but  that  his  methods  here  are  seen  to  be  more 
like  what  he  has  been  teaching  men  of  his 
methods  everywhere. 

How  natural,  for  instance,  was  the  origin  of 
the  Bible  as  the  Bible  itself  reveals  it.  Had  men 
claimed  always  for  the  Bible  only  what  it  claims 
for  itself,  much  harmful  controversy  would  have 
been  saved.  Needless  to  say,  the  book  was 
never  dropped  from  heaven  complete;  it  grew 
up  out  of  the  life  of  a  race  chosen  of  God  for 
great  service,  the  expression  of  all  that  was  best 


52  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

in  their  history,  their  biography,  their  literature, 
their  poetry,  their  preaching,  their  legislation. 
In  very  early  days  one  writer  from  his  stand- 
point, and  another  from  his,  but  both  with  a 
strong  religious  interest,  gathered  together  cer- 
tain traditions  long  current  not  only  in  Israel, 
but  in  Babylonia  and  elsewhere,  as  to  the  begin- 
nings of  human  history;  a  later  writer  gathered 
these  writings  into  one  without  attempting  to 
harmonize  them,  and  our  book  of  Genesis — the 
wonderful  book  of  Beginnings — came  into  being. 
Exodus  is  the  history  of  the  dramatic  exodus  of 
Israel  from  Egypt.  Leviticus  is  the  lawbook  of 
the  nation.  Psalms,  on  which  the  devout  spirits 
of  the  ages  have  been  nourished,  was,  with  its 
appendix  the  book  of  Lamentations,  the  hymn- 
and  prayer-book  of  the  Jewish  community. 
Proverbs  is  a  collection  of  the  sayings  of  the 
sages,  the  wise  men  who  were  in  every  village, 
whose  successors  sought  out  the  infant  Jesus, 
the  counsellors  of  the  people,  men  with  a  genius 
for  summing  up  truth  in  a  sentence..  A  certain 
prophet  of  God,  unable  longer  to  reach  his 
audience,  receives  a  command  to  write  the 
things  that  are  throbbing  in  his  soul;  and  one 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  53 

of  the  great  books  of  the  prophets  is  written. 
An  ancient  philosopher  faces  the  great  problem 
of  the  ages,  why  the  good  suffer  with  the  wicked; 
in  dramatic  form  he  weaves  his  thought  around 
a  well-known  story  probably  much  older  than 
his  time,  and  the  result  is  the  book  of  Job,  the 
great  epic  of  the  human  soul.  Gradually  these 
books,  and  others,  written  some  of  them  centu- 
ries apart,  were  gathered  together,  and  the  Bible 
as  Jesus  knew  and  loved  it,  the  cream  of  the 
sacred  literature  of  his  race,  had  taken  its  place 
in  human  history. 

Quite  as  natural,  and  much  more  easy  to 
trace,  is  the  origin  of  the  New  Testament  as  the 
New  Testament  itself  reveals  it.  The  heart  of 
Paul,  the  great  missionary  apostle,  goes  out  to 
the  little  bands  of  converts,  and  the  struggling 
churches,  he  has  left  all  along  the  line  of  his 
progress;  driven  by  persecution  from  their  cit- 
ies, he  cannot  go  to  see  them;  but  he  can  write, 
and  he  does;  out  of  a  full  heart,  out  of  a  glowing 
mind,  out  of  a  great  experience,  he  pours  out  to 
them  his  inmost  soul  on  the  great  themes  of  life 
and  destiny,  on  the  greatest  theme,  Jesus  Christ; 
in  words  he  never  thought  would  live  after  him, 


54  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

in  words  born  of  the  immediate  needs  of  the  men 
to  whom  he  wrote,  in  words  born  of  his  great 
love.  To-day  these  letters  of  Paul,  dictated  most 
of  them  to  an  amanuensis,  with  a  brief  postscript 
sometimes  in  his  own  hand,  for  he  was  half- 
blind — "See  with  what  large  characters  I  have 
written  to  you" — constitute  about  one-half  of  the 
New  Testament;  and  upon  them  the  religious 
thinking  of  the  centuries  has  been  largely  built. 
Luke,  the  physician,  has  a  friend  Theophilus — 
"loved  of  God" — who  is  also  dearly  loved  of 
Luke.  He  is  eager,  he  tells  us,  that  Theophilus 
should  have  full  knowledge  of  Jesus's  life  and 
words,  and  a  firm  basis  for  the  faith  that  is  in 
him;  so  "having  had  perfect  understanding  of 
all  things  from  the  very  first,"  he  writes  them 
down  in  order,  and  the  book  he  wrote  for  The- 
ophilus is  our  Gospel  of  Luke,  without  which  the 
world  would  never  have  known  the  parable  of 
the  prodigal  son.  Later  he  carried  the  story  on 
to  the  beginnings  of  Christian  history,  again  for 
the  sake  of  Theophilus,  and  the  book  of  Acts  is 
the  result.  Just  as  Robertson  of  Brighton,  his 
biographer  tells  us,  wrote  out  his  sermons  after 
they  had  been  preached,  for  the  sake  of  a  single 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  55 

friend  whom  he  thought  they  might  help,  and 
the  labor  of  love  thus  done  by  Robertson  for  his 
friend  has  been  used  of  God  to  mould  the  re- 
ligious thinking  of  the  world  as  have  no  other 
English  sermons  for  a  century.  As  the  days 
passed,  these  books  and  others — gospels,  letters, 
poetic  visions — came  to  be  read  in  the  meetings 
of  the  early  Christians  for  their  comfort  and  in- 
struction; they  became  a  vital  part  of  the 
church's  life;  and  after  a  time  the  church,  in  the 
exercise  of  its  wisdom,  and  ever  seeking  the  Di- 
vine guidance,  chose  the  best  of  them,  gathered 
them  together,  and  the  New  Testament  was 
wedded  to  the  Old.  How  natural  the  origin  of 
the  Bible  as  the  Bible  itself  reveals  it! 

And  then  how  natural  and  human  are  the 
books  thus  in  this  wonderfully  natural  way  given 
to  the  world.  No  claim  to  a  miraculous  infalli- 
bility is  made;  no  claim  that  the  Spirit  of  God, 
inspiring  these  men,  breathing  into  them  great 
thoughts,  large  visions  of  truth,  overthrew  the 
citadel  of  their  individuality,  crushed  out  crude 
conceptions  born  of  their  age,  made  of  them 
sacred  but  slumbering  penmen.  No,  the 
human  is  ever  quite  as  manifest  as  the  divine. 


F  THE.  ^V 

ERS1TY  ) 


OF  TJ 

UNIVERSITY 


56  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

Sometimes  Paul  feels  sure  that  he  is  writing 
the  very  word  of  God  for  his  children;  some- 
times he  says  frankly  that  he  is  giving  his 
own  opinion.  "I  have  no  commandment  of  the 
Lord/'  he  writes  to  the  Corinthians,  "but  I  give 
my  judgment  as  one  that  hath  obtained  mercy 
of  the  Lord  to  be  faithful;"  sometimes  he  thinks 
he  has  the  Divine  approval,  but  is  not  sure — "I 
think  also  that  I  have  the  Spirit  of  God,"  he  says 
in  the  same  letter.  Again  Paul  says  frankly  that 
he  knows  in  part,  prophesies  in  part,  sees 
through  a  glass  darkly.  He  says  of  Peter,  an- 
other of  the  apostolic  writers,  that  he  dissem- 
bled, and  walked  not  according  to  the  truth  of 
the  gospel;  and  Peter  says  of  Paul  that  he  some- 
times writes  things  hard  to  understand  which 
ignorant  men  have  twisted  to  their  own  destruc- 
tion, a  verdict  with  which  many  a  modern  ad- 
mirer of  Paul  inclines  to  sympathize.  No  effort 
is  made  by  the  various  writers  to  harmonize 
their  accounts  in  detail;  there  has  been  no  say- 
ing, Let  us  be  careful  that  we  all  say  this  and 
that;  strong  evidence  this  of  their  perfect  frank- 
ness and  truthfulness.  Just  as  no  two  biogra- 
phers of  St.  Francis  give  alike  the  names  of  the 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  57 

friends  who  accompanied  him  to  Rome  on  his 
great  mission  to  the  Pope;  just  as  no  two  expert 
reporters  report  a  great  event  in  just  the  same 
way  or  agree  perfectly  in  their  statement  of 
facts;  so  these  biographers  and  historians  of 
early  ages  tell  their  story  each  from  his  own 
point  of  view  as  he  understands  and  emphasizes 
the  facts.  The  conception  of  a  Bible  in  its  every 
detail  infallible — the  great  misfortune  of  Protest- 
antism, which  opened  the  way  for  such  fiascoes 
as  Ingersoll's  "Mistakes  of  Moses,"  and  for  so 
much  misunderstanding  of  a  higher  order— was 
born  of  an  apparent  historical  necessity  at  the 
time  of  the  Reformation.  To  the  man  who 
asked,  "What  is  truth  ?"  was  ever  ready  the  an- 
swer, "Ask  the  church;  the  Pope,  the  vicegerent 
of  God,  cannot  err."  Now  this  was  changed. 
But  men  still  craved  an  infallible  authority,  and 
so,  in  place  of  an  infallible  church,  they  put  an 
infallible  book,  forgetful  that  God  makes  his 
approach  directly  to  each  individual  soul,  and 
that  each  soul  may  come  directly  to  him.  As  a 
result,  men  eager  to  champion  the  sacred  book 
have  bent  backward  in  their  devotion,  and  as- 
sumed that  opening  it  at  random  one  could  find 


58  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

an  infallible  guide  in  every  experience  of  life. 
When  vaccination  was  first  introduced  in  New 
England,  a  sermon  in  opposition  to  it  by  one 
Mussey  of  London  was  widely  circulated;  its 
text  was,  "So  went  Satan  forth  from  the  presence 
of  the  Lord,  and  smote  Job  with  sore  boils  from 
the  sole  of  his  foot  unto  his  crown";  its  argu- 
ment, that  Satan  was  the  first  inoculator.  So 
wise  a  man  as  John  Wesley  twice  tried  to  find 
guidance  as  to  a  call  to  Bristol  by  a  random 
opening  of  the  sacred  book,  and  when  the  second 
time  the  verse  that  fell  beneath  his  eye  was 
"And  Ahaz  slept  with  his  fathers,  and  they 
buried  him  in  the  city,  even  Jerusalem,"  he  and 
his  friends,  for  reasons  which  his  biographers  do 
not  explain,  found  here  a  confirmation  of  the 
call  to  Bristol.  But  this  is  bibliolatry,  not  the 
wise  use  of  the  Scriptures  which  the  sacred 
books  themselves  commend.  Paul  loved  the 
Scriptures,  nourished  his  soul  upon  them,  but  he 
quotes  from  them  in  a  way  that  indicates  either 
a  careless  memory,  or  the  use  of  a  version  not 
now  known,  or  more  probably  an  emphasis  upon 
the  spirit  rather  than  the  letter  of  the  ancient 
books.    Matthew  (27  :  9)  ascribes  to  Jeremiah 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  59 

a  record  which  is  found  only  in  the  book  of  the 
prophet  Zechariah.  The  mind  of  Jesus  was  sat- 
urated with  the  great  writings  of  his  race;  but 
unhesitatingly  he  puts  himself  far  above  them, 
saying  "Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said  by 
them  of  olden  time  .  .  .  but  I  say  unto  you/5 
and  again  to  the  advocates  of  a  literal  interpreta- 
tion of  every  word  of  the  ancient  law,  "Ye  search 
the  Scriptures  because  ye  think  that  in  them  ye 
have  eternal  life;  and  these  are  they  which  bear 
witness  of  me;  and  ye  will  not  come  to  me  that 
ye  might  have  life."  The  true  place  of  the  Scrip- 
tures in  the  life  of  the  Christian  is  proclaimed  by 
Paul  in  a  familiar  passage,  "Every  Scripture  in- 
spired of  God  is  also  profitable  for  teaching,  for 
reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruction  which  is 
in  righteousness;  that  the  man  of  God  may  be 
complete,  furnished  completely  unto  every  good 
work."  That  is  to  say,  their  mission  is  educa- 
tional, corrective,  inspirational;  their  great  rela- 
tion to  the  life  of  man,  that  he  may  be  wise  in 
thought  and  strong  for  service.  They  are  "  able 
to  make  thee  wise  unto  salvation" — in  them- 
selves?— no,  "through  faith  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus."     "The  word  was  never  made  verses," 


60  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

well  says  an  old  Scotch  minister  of  the  last  cen- 
tury; "it  was  made  flesh."  "No  other  paper," 
says  Phillips  Brooks,  "is  fit  to  hold  that  awful 
writing." 

But  now  it  may  be  asked,  if  the  Bible  is  not, 
in  its  every  detail,  infallible,  if  its  conception  of 
the  material  universe  is  outgrown,  and  its  mor- 
als at  times  primitive  to  say  the  least,  why  read 
the  Bible  to-day  ?  Is  not  God  still  revealing 
himself  to  the  spirits  of  men  ?  Are  there  not 
still  prophets  inspired  of  God  to  proclaim  his 
will  ?  And  the  answer  of  course  is,  that  revela- 
tion and  inspiration  have  not  ceased;  to  every 
age  God  is  speaking  as  he  spoke  to  the  prophets 
of  old.  But  the  Bible  is  not  superseded.  For 
these  reasons  it  has,  and  will  always  have,  a 
unique  place  in  the  life  of  men: 

(i)  It  is  the  inspired  record — inspired  be- 
cause in  this  wonderfully  natural  way  men  were 
guided  of  God  to  do  things  far  larger  than  they 
conceived — of  the  great  revelation  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ.  The  Old  Testament,  in  ways  the 
men  who  wrote  it  never  dreamed,  is  the  record 
of  the  progressive  preparation  of  the  world  for 
his  coming;  to  him  as  with  an  index  finger  it  ever 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  61 

points;  in  the  New  in  the  fulness  of  the  times  he 
stands  before  us,  lives  his  life  of  love,  speaks  his 
wondrous  words,  is  crucified  and  risen;  in  the 
New,  too,  we  see  the  influence  of  his  life  and 
words  and  death  and  resurrection  upon  the  men 
who  were  nearest  to  him,  the  small  beginnings 
of  the  Kingdom  that,  slowly  coming  even  yet,  is 
destined  everywhere  to  triumph.  The  perman- 
ence of  the  Bible  is  the  permanence  of  him  into 
whose  presence  it  leads;  as  there  can  never  be 
a  greater  and  more  satisfying  revelation  of  God 
than  the  love  of  Christ,  so  there  can  never  be  a 
greater  record  of  that  revelation  than  the  Bible. 
(2)  The  Bible  is  unique  in  all  the  literature  of 
the  ages  because  of  its  wonderful  adaptation  and 
appeal  to  the  needs  of  all  sorts  of  men  in  every 
age.  Outgrown  in  science,  product  of  a  primi- 
tive age,  unlike  all  other  books  it  never  grows 
old.  It  speaks  ever  out  of  the  experience  of 
yesterday,  to  the  needs  of  to-day,  and  the  long- 
ings of  to-morrow.  And  the  reason  for  this 
perennial  freshness  is  that  the  themes  with 
which  it  deals,  and  the  impulses  it  aims  to  kindle, 
are  the  same  in  every  time  in  every  clime.  As 
Bishop  Butler  said  long  ago,  it  gives  us  an  ac- 


62  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

count  of  the  world  in  this  one  single  view  as 
God's  world;  it  lays  bare  the  corruption  of  the 
human  heart,  the  self-deceit  of  its  motives,  the 
sure  disappointment  of  its  selfish  efforts,  until 
he  who  reads  cries  with  Judas,  "Lord,  is  it  I  ?"; 
it  utters  as  does  no  other  book  the  perennial 
yearning  of  the  longing  soul  after  God  and  im- 
mortality, crying  with  the  troubled  spirits  of 
every  age,  "Oh  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find 
him!"  It  is  the  great  storehouse  of  religious  ex- 
perience, the  exhaustless  reservoir  of  religious 
aspiration.  As  Coleridge  said  of  it  so  tersely, 
"It  finds  me." 

(3)  The  Bible  is  unique  in  literature  in  that 
it  is  the  great  channel  of  present  revelation  and 
inspiration.  As  ever,  God  works  by  natural 
methods.  He  seeks  the  man  who  seeks  him. 
He  reveals  himself  to  the  inquiring  soul.  Many 
a  man  has  found  that  the  days  when,  for  one 
reason  or  another,  the  Bible  was  largely  a  closed 
book,  were  the  days  of  dimness  of  vision  and 
languor  of  impulse,  the  days  of  doubt  and  dis- 
couragement; and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
days  when,  not  understanding  fully  its  message, 
often  perplexed  and  troubled,  not  understanding 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  63 

God  and  his  own  heart,  he  yet  sought  earnestly 
to  nourish  his  soul  upon  the  words  of  Psalmist 
and  prophet,  most  of  all  upon  the  blessed  words 
of  the  Master,  these  were  the  days  of  new  illu- 
mination and  confidence,  the  days  he  was  strong 
to  persist  and  patient  to  endure.  As  with  life 
itself,  the  richest  treasures  of  the  Bible  are  not 
upon  the  surface.  He  who  brings  to  it  the  most 
gets  from  it  the  most.  He  finds  that  systematic 
and  prayerful  study  brings  to  him  often  the  ex- 
perience of  which  Thomas  Fuller,  one  of  the 
wise  men  of  the  seventeenth  century,  spoke, 
"Lord,  this  morning  I  read  a  chapter  in  the 
Bible,  and  therein  observed  a  memorable  pas- 
sage, whereof  I  never  took  notice  before.  Why 
now,  and  no  sooner,  did  I  see  it  ?  Formerly  my 
eyes  were  as  open,  and  the  letters  as  legible.  Is 
there  not  a  thin  veil  laid  over  thy  Word,  which 
is  more  rarefied  by  reading,  and  at  last  wholly 
worn  away  ?  I  see  the  oil  of  thy  word  will 
never  leave  increasing  whilst  any  bring  an  empty 
barrel." 

The  recognition  of  the  Bible  as  the  great 
channel  of  present  revelation  and  inspiration, 
suggests  a  satisfying  answer  to  the  perplexing 


64  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

question  as  to  the  ultimate  source  of  authority 
in  the  Christian  life.  If  the  infallibility  of  the 
book  is  set  aside,  as  was  the  infallibility  of  the 
church,  where  to-day  are  men  to  look  for  an 
infallible  authority  ?  The  answer  is  that  the 
word  of  God,  uttered  once  perfectly  in  the 
mind  and  word  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ,  is  the 
one  infallible  authority.  But  how  are  men  to 
know  with  unerring  accuracy  the  word  of  God 
thus  expressed  ?  The  answer  of  Roman  Cathol- 
icism is  partially  right;  the  church  through  its 
history  more  than  through  its  decisions  and 
dicta  interprets  to  men  the  Divine  mind.  The 
answer  of  historic  Protestantism  is  partially 
right,  marking  a  great  forward  step;  in  its  spir- 
itual leadership  the  Bible  is  infallible,  the  man 
who  opens  wide  his  heart  to  its  teaching  will  in- 
evitably be  led  ever  more  perfectly  into  the  way, 
the  truth  and  the  life.  The  answer  of  modern 
criticism  is  partially  right,  marking  another  for- 
ward step;  the  word  of  God  vocal  in  the  soul  of 
man  is  the  final  authority;  no  external  author- 
ity is  valid  and  vital  until  it  is  confirmed  and 
attested  within.  And  yet  all  these  answers  are 
partial.    The  forgotten  truth  in  them  is  that  an 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  65 

infallible  authority  can  only  reveal  itself  com- 
pletely to,  can  only  utter  itself  fully  through,  an 
infallible  life.  This  is  the  testimony  of  Script- 
ure: "The  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that 
fear  him,"  "Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for 
they  shall  see  God."  And  this  is  the  testimony 
of  experience;  it  explains  the  puzzling  fact  that 
the  word  of  God  vocal  in  the  souls  of  earnest 
men  seems  often  to  speak  with  so  many  clashing 
tongues.  In  this  school  of  life  God's  revelation 
to  the  individual  as  to  the  world  is,  and  must  be, 
a  progressive  revelation,  dependent  upon  the 
growth  of  the  man's  soul;  always  for  the  seed 
of  truth  there  must  be  the  soil  of  faith  and  love. 
And  commonly  his  method  is  to  reveal  truth  not 
in  a  flash,  but  in  the  friction  through  the  years 
of  opposing  half-truths.  Wherever  there  is  a 
double  allegiance,  part  for  God  and  part  for 
self,  the  vision  of  truth  will  be  blurred;  wherever 
there  is  cherished  prejudice,  there  will  be  nar- 
rowness of  view  and  false  emphasis;  where  but 
one  phase  of  truth  is  seen,  the  sense  of  propor- 
tion will  be  lost.  But  where  there  is  a  docile  mind, 
a  humble  spirit,  a  pure  heart,  a  surrendered  will, 
a  life  responsive  to  the  lessons  of  history  and 


66  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

nourished  constantly  upon  the  sacred  Script- 
ures, such  a  man  will  grow  up  increasingly  into 
the  mind  of  Christ;  more  and  more  the  word  of 
God  will  be  vocal  and  vital  in  his  soul.  The 
great  word  of  Jesus  to  the  man  who  is  seeking 
an  infallible  authority  is  this,  "He  that  hath 
ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear." 


VII 

THE  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  MODERN  LIFE 

/  I  AHE  decay  of  the  sense  of  sin  in  our  genera- 
tion has  often  been  noted.  "The  higher 
man  of  to-day,"  says  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  "is  not 
worrying  about  his  sins  at  all,  still  less  about 
their  punishment;  his  mission,  if  he  is  good  for 
anything,  is  to  be  up  and  doing."  "There  is 
no  virtue  in  thinking  upon  sin,"  says  Dr.  George 
Albert  Coe,  "or  in  emotional  experience  with 
respect  to  it,  except  as  these  are  merely  reverse 
aspects  of  aggressive  fighting,  or  of  industrious 
work  upon  the  eternal  temple."  *  Compare  this 
with  Paul's  consciousness  of  sin — "Christ  Jesus 
came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners,  of  whom 
I  am  chief";  or  with  the  self-estimate  of  Ber- 
nard of  Clairvaux,  whose  life  was  one  of  habitual 
self-denial  and  beautiful  devotion  to  the  Chris- 
tian ideal,  "  When  I  look  at  myself,  I  find  myself 
oppressed  with  such  a  burden  of  sin  that  no 
other  hope  of  salvation  is  left  me  save  in  the 
mercy  of  Christ  alone";  or  with  the  confession 

♦  "The  Religion  of  a  Mature  Mind."  p.  392. 

67 


68  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

of  Samuel  Rutherford,  "The  world  hath  sadly 
mistaken  me;  no  man  knoweth  what  guiltiness 
is  in  me;  I  am  a  wretched  captive  of  sin";  or 
with  the  saying  of  Tholuck,  addressing  a  gath- 
ering of  his  students  and  of  the  learned  men  of 
Germany  assembled  to  do  him  honor  on  the  fifti- 
eth anniversary  of  his  professorate  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Halle, "  The  one  thing  for  which  I  have 
most  to  thank  God  is  the  conviction  of  sin." 

To-day  men  seldom  talk  in  this  latter  way. 
True,  most  of  us  have  bad  half-hours  with  our- 
selves when  we  realize  what  fools  we  have  been. 
We  are  keenly  conscious  of  limitation  and  im- 
perfection, but  the  sense  that  we  are  downright 
sinners  somehow  escapes  the  average  man  of 
our  time.  He  is  distinctly  respectable,  certainly 
as  good  as  his  neighbor.  "I  do  about  as  nearly 
right  as  I  know  how,"  is  the  self-satisfied  verdict 
repeatedly  given  by  men  to  whom  the  claims  of 
Christianity  are  presented.  The  sense  of  sin 
seems  to  be  gone. 

The  change  is  sometimes  ascribed  to  the 
worlds  progress.  Fortunately  the  moral  stand- 
ards of  the  sixteenth  century  are  outgrown.  But 
there  is  still  coarseness  and  vulgarity  enough  to 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  69 

give  the  common  conscience  of  humanity  many 
a  restless  night.  Vice  may  be  more  refined,  but 
it  is  not  less  vicious.  If  in  some  things  we  have 
outgrown  our  fathers,  in  others  they  would  be 
heartily  ashamed  of  us. 

The  modern  emphasis  on  culture  is  some- 
times supposed  to  account  largely  for  the 
change.  Many  people  are  not  rascals  mainly 
because  they  are  not  fools.  Men  are  finding 
out  that  it  is  much  more  comfortable  and  hy- 
gienic to  live  in  a  pure,  healthy  body,  than  in  one 
tainted  and  weakened  by  self-indulgence;  that 
a  mind  which  habitually  thinks  broad,  kindly, 
hopeful  thoughts  is  a  much  more  pleasant  trav- 
elling companion  than  one  which  habitually 
thinks  petty,  envious,  resentful,  selfish  thoughts; 
that  a  life  of  self-control  dominated  daily  by  a 
sovereign  will  and  a  sublime  purpose  is  infi- 
nitely more  satisfying  than  a  life  tossed  by  every 
sudden  squall.  But  of  genuine  culture  the 
usual  effect  is  to  open  a  man's  eyes  to  summits 
of  attainment  unseen  before;  to  reveal  to  him 
the  vastness  of  the  chasm  between  the  man  he 
is  and  the  man  he  should  be.  True  culture 
deepens  rather  than  weakens  the  sense  of  sin. 


70  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

By  others  the  change  is  laid  to  the  purer  re- 
ligious thinking  of  our  time.  Fear,  we  are  told, 
was  the  characteristic  word  of  the  religious 
thinking  of  our  fathers;  to-day  love  is  the  word 
that  goes  to  the  heart  of  our  teaching.  This  is 
nearer  the  truth;  of  the  contrast  suggested  more 
will  shortly  be  said.  Yet  who  can  believe  that 
fear  was  the  impelling  motive  of  the  devout  souls 
of  generations  past,  of  Paul,  of  Bernard,  of  our 
own  sainted  fathers  ? 

The  source  of  the  change  lies  deeper.  With 
multitudes  of  men  the  lost  sense  of  sin  follows 
the  lost  sense  of  God.  Recognition  of  respon- 
sibility to  God,  and  of  the  infinite  meaning  of  a 
human  life,  have  disappeared  from  their  horizon, 
and  with  these  has  gone  of  course  the  sense  of 
sin.  Restore  the  old-fashioned  virtues — rever- 
ence, humility,  conscious  dependence  upon 
God,  daily  loyalty  to  Christ — and  the  sense  of 
sin  will  quickly  return.  Others  misconceive 
wholly  the  nature  of  sin.  They  confuse  sin 
with  sins.  Sin  fundamentally  is  not  an  act,  it  is 
an  attitude.  It  is  the  chasm  of  motive  and 
effort  which  separates  my  thought  and  life  from 
the  thought  and  life  of  God.     Reputable  men 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  71 

who  habitually  think  of  sin  as  drunkenness,  or 
impurity,  or  profanity,  or  theft,  will  naturally 
experience  a  decay  of  the  sense  of  sin. 

But  is  this  the  last  word  upon  the  subject  ? 
Is  there  really  everywhere  in  the  deepest  things 
of  the  spirit  a  backward  movement  ?  Are  our 
best  men  worse  than  their  fathers  ?  Is  there  not 
rather  possessing  the  minds,  and  animating  the 
hearts,  and  impelling  the  consciences  of  multi- 
tudes of  men  to-day  a  new  sense  of  sin,  less 
clearly  defined,  perhaps,  but  more  real,  vital  and 
truly  Christian  than  the  old.  I  believe  confi- 
dently that  there  is.  It  is  a  safe  rule  that  there 
is  no  virtue  in  a  thing  simply  because  it  used  to 
be.  On  the  contrary,  if  it  used  to  be,  and  is  not, 
it  is  well  commonly  to  inquire  whether  there  is 
not  some  good  reason  for  the  change.  For  to 
believe  that  the  world  is  going  backward  is  to 
lose  the  dominant  note  of  Christian  faith.  Are 
there  not  some  things  about  the  old  sense  of  sin, 
beautiful,  humbling,  creative,  as  it  often  was, 
which  the  world  has  well  outgrown,  losing 
which  in  the  growth  of  its  better  thought  it  has 
in  the  natural  motion  of  the  human  pendulum 
swung  to  the  other  extreme  and  for  the  time 


72  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

lost  also  much  of  the  good  ?  If  I  mistake  not, 
there  are. 

For  instance,  the  old  sense  of  sin  was  often 
more  a  theological  inheritance  than  a  practical 
experience.  The  burden  of  Adam's  sin  was 
upon  men.  A  racial  taint,  hopeless,  cruel,  pur- 
sued them.  To-day,  too  flippantly  perhaps, 
men  are  disposed  to  let  Adam  take  care  of  him- 
self. In  the  mind  of  the  average  Christian,  prac- 
tical experience  precedes,  tests,  controls,  every 
theological  tenet;  is  this  true?  means  not,  has 
some  one  said  this  long  ago  ?  but,  do  men  know 
it  to-day  in  the  battle-ground  of  the  soul  ?  Orig- 
inal sin  is  not  denied;  it  is  lost  to  view  in  the 
pressure  of  present  conflict.  The  problem  of 
origins  has  not  lost  its  interest,  but  its  prece- 
dence. Sin  is  not  less  real,  but  it  is  a  great  grim 
fact  to  be  bravely  met,  not  an  insoluble  mystery 
to  be  quarrelled  about. 

Again,  the  old  sense  of  sin  was  apt  to  be  mor- 
bidly introspective.  Habitually  it  looked  with- 
in. It  dissected  motives,  longings,  affections; 
it  fed  upon  self-analysis;  it  revealed  itself  in 
moods.  Under  its  influence  good  men  doubted 
their  own  salvation,  and  were  driven  to  despair. 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  j$ 

How  they  suffered,  these  pure,  sensitive  spirits 
of  old !  Pascal,  sick,  nerve-racked,  wondered  if 
his  affection  for  his  sister,  who  had  nursed  him 
through  a  long  illness,  was  not  sinful.  One  day 
he  wrote  in  his  diary,  "God  forgive  me  for  lov- 
ing my  dear  sister  so  much."  Afterward  he 
drew  his  pen  through  the  word  "dear."  To-day 
self-analysis  has  its  place  in  the  Christian  life, 
but  it  is  a  minor  place.  Outward,  onward,  up- 
ward is  the  Christian's  look.  God  is  not  a  jeal- 
out  taskmaster,  but  a  loving  Father,  not  a  rival 
of  human  affections  but  their  source,  their  in- 
spiration, their  very  life.  The  saving  of  one's 
own  soul  is  no  longer  possible  as  the  ruling 
thought  of  the  Christian  mind;  as  Job's  cap- 
tivity was  turned  when  he  thought  of  his  friends, 
so  often  the  redeeming  process,  the  "being 
saved"  of  Scripture,  gains  reality  only  when  a 
man's  thought  and  effort  go  forth  to  others  that 
they  may  be  brought  to  their  true  selves  and  to 
God.    To  be  selfishly  saved  is  to  be  lost. 

Once  more,  the  old  sense  of  sin  was  apt  to 
look  backward  rather  than  forward.  It  mourned 
over  the  past.  It  dwelt  upon  failures.  The 
new  sense  of  sin  is  the  response  to  a  voice  which 


74  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

says:  "  Behold,  I  set  before  thee  an  open  door"; 
it  has  learned  Phillips  Brooks's  message  that  a 
man  has  nothing  to  do  with  his  past  save  to  get 
a  future  out  of  it.  Saddened  by  yesterday's  ex- 
perience, it  is  also  strengthened  by  it;  and  its 
face  is  toward  the  light.  It  is  illumined  by  a 
clearer  vision  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  A 
son,  rebellious,  wayward,  eager  for  his  own  way, 
leaves  his  father's  home.  By  and  by,  coming 
to  himself,  he  comes  again  to  his  home,  cries: 
"I  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called  your  son; 
make  me  as  a  hired  servant."  The  father 
requires  of  him  no  painful  penance,  no  morbid 
moping  over  the  bitter  past;  to  the  boy's  bleed- 
ing heart  goes  forth  the  father's  healing,  reviv- 
ing touch,  he  kills  the  fatted  calf,  calls  in  the 
neighbors  to  welcome  him  home.  The  Father 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  requires  of  his  children 
no  unhealthy  lamentation  over  the  past,  but  only 
that  confessing  humbly  our  wrongdoing,  learn- 
ing watchfully  its  hard  lessons,  we  go  on  in  their 
light  to  the  better  sonship  of  the  days  to  come. 
In  the  true  Christian  life  there  is  never  any  time 
for  mere  morbid  regrets.  The  more  wasted 
time  in  the  past,  the  less  time  to  waste  to-day. 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  75 

Once  more,  the  old  sense  of  sin  saw  mainly 
things  done;  the  new  and  better  sense  of  sin 
sees  mainly  things  undone.  Its  heartbreak  is 
the  gulf  between  the  ideal  and  the  real,  the 
things  purposed  and  the  things  achieved.  It  is 
active  rather  than  meditative,  less  a  review  of 
the  feelings  than  a  survey  of  the  field. 

And  so  the  new  sense  of  sin,  already,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  keenly  felt  in  the  lives  of  Christian 
men  and  women  to-day,  and  destined  to  be  felt 
ever  more  creatively  as  the  kingship  of  Christ 
gains  ascendency  in  the  hearts  of  men,  has  these 
three  kindred  characteristics: 

(1)  It  is  social  no  less  than  it  is  personal.  The 
personal  is  not  lost  to  view;  it  cannot  be;  for 
sin  seen  to  its  heart  is  the  absence  of  a  personal 
relation.  But  that  of  which  men  are  conscious 
in  these  days  as  never  before  is  a  broadening  of 
the  personal  relation.  As  Gregory,  hearing  of 
a  poor  man's  death  by  starvation  in  Rome,  felt 
himself  to  blame,  and  scourged  and  denied  him- 
self for  his  sin,  so  the  Christian  of  to-day  who, 
in  faintest  degree,  has  caught  the  spirit  of  his 
Master,  cannot  separate  himself  from  the  sin,  the 
sorrow,  the  struggle,  the  ignorance  of  his  race, 


76  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

feels  them  as  though  they  were  his  own,  knows 
his  life  to  be  a  failure  until  it  is  going  forth  to 
meet  them.  Wherever  poverty,  oppression  and 
selfishness  are  blighting  human  lives,  wherever 
manhood  is  missing  its  meaning  and  weakness 
is  sinking  in  the  mire,  there  the  Christian  feels 
within  him  a  burning  of  shame  and  a  passion  to 
help;  it  is  the  new  sense  of  sin.  New  ?  It  was 
the  sense  of  sin  which  the  Hebrew  prophets  felt. 
Remember  Amos:  "I  know  your  manifold 
transgressions  and  your  mighty  sins" — what 
are  they?  "They  afflict  the  just,  they  take  a 
bribe,  they  turn  aside  the  poor  in  the  gate  from 
their  right."  "Woe  to  them  that  are  at  ease  in 
Zion,  that  lie  upon  beds  of  ivory  and  stretch 
themselves  upon  their  couches,  and  eat  the 
lambs  out  of  the  flocks,  that  drink  wine  in  bowls 
and  anoint  themselves  with  the  chief  ointments; 
but  they  are  not  grieved  for  the  afflictions  of 
Joseph."  Micah  is  "full  of  power  by  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  to  declare  unto  Jacob  his  transgres- 
sion and  to  Israel  his  sin,"  and  what  does  he 
say  ?  "Hear  this,  ye  heads  of  the  house  of  Ja- 
cob, and  princes  of  the  houseof  Israel,  that  abhor 
justice  and  pervert  all  equity;  the  heads  thereof 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  77 

judge  for  reward,  and  the  priests  thereof  teach 
for  hire,  and  the  prophets  thereof  divine  for 
money" — the  grasping  and  the  "graft'  of  the 
age  have  aroused  in  the  prophet  the  sense  of 
sin.  "Cease  to  do  evil,  learn  to  do  well,"  cried 
Isaiah,  but  how?  "Seek  justice,  relieve  the 
oppressed,  judge  the  fatherless,  plead  for  the 
widow;  come  now  and  let  us  reason  together, 
saith  the  Lord;  though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet, 
they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow;  though  they  be 
red  like  crimson,  they  shall  be  as  wool."  And 
what  were  the  sins  to  which  Christ  was  most 
sensitive  ?  They  have  been  well  classified  in 
this  way:  sins  of  the  thought — envy,  uncharita- 
ble judgment,  evil  desire;  sins  of  Pharisaism — 
the  pious  tongue,  and  the  proud,  selfish,  con- 
temptuous life;  sins  against  the  little  ones,  the 
young,  the  sick  in  body  or  in  mind,  the  weak  in 
achievement  or  in  will.  All  of  them  are  sins  that 
touch  some  other  life.  Himself  sinless,  the 
Master  had  as  few  have  had,  the  sense  of  sin; 
it  was  the  burden  of  the  cross,  the  pang  that 
made  him  cry,  "My  God,  my  God,  why  hast 
thou  forsaken  me  ? " 

(2)  The  new  sense  of  sin  is  closely  related  to 


78  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

the  advancing  kingdom  of  God.  This  was  the 
reason  Jesus  gave  for  calling  on  men  to  give  up 
their  sin  and  selfishness;  "repent,  for  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  at  hand."  Christ  seldom 
spoke  to  men  of  the  wickedness  of  that  which 
they  were  doing,  but  of  the  greatness  and  beauty 
of  that  which  they  were  missing.  Change  your 
minds,  he  seems  to  say,  about  the  real  prizes 
and  pleasures  of  life,  get  into  line  with  the 
things  that  count,  for  God's  day  is  coming, 
slowly  but  surely  his  triumphant  will  is  advanc- 
ing to  victory.  To  think  what  God  is  doing  here 
on  earth — making  men  in  his  own  image,  bring- 
ing forth  a  universal  kingdom,  of  which  right- 
eousness and  truth  and  peace  shall  be  the  at- 
mosphere, in  which  all  men  shall  be  brothers 
under  one  great  Father — to  think  what  God  is 
doing,  and  then  to  think  what  most  of  us  are 
doing;  to  think  earnestly  the  thoughts  of  God 
after  him  for  the  men  and  women  around  us, 
and  then  to  think  our  own:  this  is  to  feel  the 
new  sense  of  sin,  and  it  stings  and  rebukes  and 
renews  as  the  mopings  of  monks  and  the  scourg- 
ings  of  ascetics  could  never  do  in  this  age. 

(3)  The  new  sense  of  sin  is  tested  and  quick- 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  79 

ened  or  quieted  by  the  law  and  the  life  of  love. 
To  know  oneself  a  sinner  in  these  days  it  is  not 
well  to  dwell  too  long  upon  the  Ten  Command- 
ments, lest  in  blindness  to  their  larger  meanings 
we  be  like  the  royal  duke  whose  audible  response 
to  each  of  them  was  "Never  did  that."  The 
enormity  of  sin  in  modern  life  is  better  brought 
home  in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  First  Corin- 
thians and  the  first  Epistle  general  of  John.  "  If 
a  man  say,  I  love  God,  and  hateth  his  brother, 
he  is  a  liar."  "We  know  that  we  have  passed 
from  death  unto  life  because  we  love  the  breth- 
ren." When  a  man  brings  the  thoughts  of  his 
heart  and  the  efforts  of  his  life  to  a  test  like  that, 
better  still  when  he  brings  them  to  the  test  of  the 
mind  and  the  life  and  the  cross  of  Christ,  he  will 
be  ready  to  join  with  new  and  redeeming  mean- 
ing in  the  old  confession:  "All  we  like  sheep 
have  gone  astray,  we  have  turned  every  one  to 
his  own  way." 


VIII 

THE  GREAT  GOSPEL  OF  THE  CROSS 

*^[OWHERE  must  the  two  keynotes  of  a 
strong  working  theology  be  borne  more 
earnestly  in  mind  than  in  any  attempt  to  dis- 
cuss this  supreme  theme.  Reverence  saves 
from  the  contradiction  of  defining  the  infinite; 
reality  puts  the  emphasis  upon  those  phases  of 
truth  which  touch  the  springs  of  life  and  are 
pregnant  with  redeeming  power. 

Through  the  ages  controversies  about  the 
cross  have  been  largely  speculative  and  scho- 
lastic. Many  minute  theories  as  to  the  effect  of 
the  Saviour's  death  have  been  confidently  ad- 
vanced. It  was  a  ransom  paid  to  the  devil,  or 
a  price  exacted  by  Infinite  Justice,  or  an  exhibi- 
tion of  Divine  Love.  The  natural  reaction  has 
been  the  modern  mood  which,  accepting  the  fact 
of  the  Saviour's  atoning  death  for  men,  con- 
fesses frankly  that  it  has  no  theory  to  offer.  This 
is  the  position  of  multitudes  of  earnest  men  to- 
day. But  there  is  manifest  in  our  time  an  im- 
patience with  this  position.     Some  theory,  we 

80 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  81 

are  told,  must  go  with  a  fact,  or  the  fact  is  vague 
and  impotent.  What  is  the  fact  about  which 
we  have  no  theory  ?  Is  it  that  the  cross  saves — 
how,  we  know  not  ?  But  what  do  we  mean  by 
the  cross  ?  The  wood  on  which  the  Master 
hung?  Or  the  actual  blood  that  was  shed  on 
the  cross  ?  Or  his  voluntary  self-consecration 
to  the  will  of  the  Father  ?  Or  his  identification 
with  human  sin  and  suffering  ?  And  what  do 
we  mean  by  being  saved  ?  Through  the  cross 
is  a  man  saved  from  past  sin  ?  From  the  power 
of  sin  ?  From  the  effects  of  sin  ?  From  the  pun- 
ishment of  sin  here  and  hereafter  ?  These  ques- 
tions concern  the  fact,  not  the  theory,  of  redemp- 
tion; the  "what,"  not  the  "how."  This  is  the 
discussion  which  is  waxing  warm  just  now  in 
England,  where  men  who  answer  in  one  way 
are  ruling  out  of  the  faith  men  who  answer  in 
another.  In  our  own  land  similar  questions  are 
being  asked.  The  prevalent  mood  is  one  of 
great  uncertainty.  Devout  souls,  incarnating  in 
their  own  lives  something  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus, 
accepting  gratefully  the  gospel  of  the  cross,  are 
earnestly  seeking  clearer  thought  about  its 
meaning. 


82  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

Now  all  such  discussion,  when  reverent  in 
spirit,  is  to  be  welcomed  as  a  healthful  symptom 
of  the  search  for  reality  in  our  time.  Men  are 
resolved  to  be  delivered  from  the  tyranny  of 
well-worn  phrases  through  which  the  edge  of 
truth  is  often  dulled;  by  them  they  will  no 
longer  be  driven  into  the  kingdom.  The  most 
sacred  words,  the  cross,  the  atonement,  the 
blood  of  Christ,  must  continue  to  reveal  truth 
that  illumines  the  mind,  and  warms  the  heart, 
and  transforms  the  life,  or  pass  from  the  speech 
of  men.  A  transaction  which  squares  accounts 
with  the  Infinite,  but  effects  no  change  in  the  in- 
dividual, is  a  contradiction  which  will  not  appeal 
to  this  age.  I  know  a  man,  in  earlier  years  de- 
voted in  Christian  service,  who  has  long  aban- 
doned all  outward  expressions  of  the  life  he 
once  held  dear.  He  no  longer  attends  church; 
from  his  home  all  forms  of  reverence  have  van- 
ished; he  yields  frequently  to  the  sins  of  the 
flesh.  Yet  he  writes:  "My  life  is  nearly  over; 
I  am  trusting  in  the  finished  work  of  Jesus 
Christ  my  Saviour."  Qne  realizes  of  course  the 
imperfection  of  all  human  judgments;  and  yet 
the  indications  are  strong  that  for  this  man  the 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  83 

"finished  work"  is  not  merely  an  empty  phrase, 
a  spiritual  catchword,  but  a  great  peril  of  the 
soul.  For  always  real  and  redeeming  is  the 
work  of  Christ  in  a  life. 

May  it  not  be  frankly  and  helpfully  recog- 
nized that  the  gospel  of  the  cross  is  larger, 
broader,  more  spiritual  than  any  human  con- 
ception of  it,  and  makes  its  appeal  in  varied 
ways  to  men  of  varied  thought  and  experience  ? 
The  teaching  of  Jesus  was  always  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  the  individuals  to  whom  he  was 
speaking;  to-day  there  is  no  mould  save  the 
heart  of  need  through  which  it  must  pass.  The 
fact  of  the  atonement,  the  greatest  of  all  facts,  is 
that  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself;  to  this  sublime  statement  of  the 
fact  nothing  need  ever  be  added.  Every  theory 
of  the  fact,  as  to  how  God  was  in  Christ,  as  to 
how  reconciliation  was  or  is  effected,  as  to  the 
relative  value  of  his  life,  his  words,  his  death,  is, 
comparatively,  of  minor  importance;  the  eter- 
nal destinies  of  a  soul  will  never  depend  upon 
his  grasping  of  an  intellectual  proposition,  or 
his  fathoming  the  relations  of  the  infinite  God 
and  his  Christ.     Yet  every  theory  helps  which 


84  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

makes  vivid  even  to  a  single  man  the  fact;  when 
through  it  reconciliation  with  God  in  Christ 
becomes  real  and  creative,  every  such  theory 
has  surely  caught  some  fringe  of  the  garment  of 
Christ;  it  is  false  and  presumptuous  only  when 
it  assumes  to  express  perfectly  the  thoughts  that 
are  not  as  our  thoughts  and  the  ways  that  are 
not  as  our  ways. 

The  man,  for  instance,  whose  life  is  stained 
with  the  blighting  memory  of  sin  and  shame, 
upon  whose  soul  lies  heavily  the  bitter  weight  of 
years  misspent,  of  lives  ruined,  of  wrongs  that 
never  can  be  righted,  rejoices  to  see  in  the 
death  of  the  Divine  Master,  sent  into  the  world 
by  the  Father,  going  freely  to  the  cross  for  men, 
the  pledge  of  sin  forgiven.  At  the  cross  his  bur- 
den falls  away;  the  loving  Christ  has  taken  it 
from  him;  he  feels  sure  that  even  for  him  the 
way  is  forever  open  to  the  Father.  No  man 
who  knows  the  sin-stained  human  heart  will 
doubt  that  the  gospel  for  this  age  must  have  in 
it  clear  and  strong  the  note  of  forgiveness.  The 
peril  of  the  man  whose  thought  of  the  cross  con- 
centrates upon  the  forgiveness  of  sin  is  that, 
saying,  as  a  man  in  jail  writes  to  me,  "My  hope 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  85 

is  now  that  Christ  died  for  me,  and  therefore  I 
can  enter  into  life  eternal,"  he  may  rest  at  this 
point.  But  if  a  genuine  love  for  his  Saviour  has 
been  kindled  in  his  heart,  he  cannot  rest  there. 
Forgiveness  will  mean  to  him,  not  a  clean  sheet, 
but  an  open  door.  His  life  will  be  reconciled 
with  God  in  Christ. 

Another  has  lived  a  life  outwardly  clean  and 
correct.  His  experience  has  been  the  gradual 
unfolding  of  the  powers  within  him,  a  deepen- 
ing desire  to  know  the  larger  meanings  of  his  life 
as  they  are  revealed  in  Christ,  and  enter  into 
them.  Such  a  man  is  less  impressed  by  the 
thought  of  substitution  in  the  work  of  Christ 
than  by  that  of  identification;  to  him  the  gospel 
of  the  cross  is  that  Divine  Love  has  made  the 
race  struggle  his  own,  identified  himself  with 
human  need  to  the  limit  of  sacrificial  love.  His 
great  joy  is  not  that  Christ  has  borne  his  sin,  but 
called  him  to  be  a  sharer  in  his  great  world- 
burden.  Beneath  the  shadow  of  the  cross,  he 
has  passed  from  anxiety  about  personal  salva- 
tion, and  speculation  about  theories  of  represen- 
tation, to  the  loving  labors  of  the  Christ.  The 
cross  is  to  him  an  impulse  more  than  a  refuge. 


86  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

If  his  spirit  be  humble,  and  his  dependence 
upon  Divine  strength  deep  and  constant,  may 
we  not  believe  that  some  part  of  the  truth  which 
is  so  much  greater  than  his  faint  gropings  after 
it,  possesses  his  soul,  and  is  making  him  free  ? 

Another  emphasizes  the  sacramental  view. 
He  thinks  of  Christ's  work  as  in  him  rather  than 
for  him.  In  his  own  strength  he  must  fail.  The 
very  life  of  Christ  must  be  given  to  him,  if  he  is 
to  win  his  battle  and  live  a  truly  Christian  life. 
But  ere  Christ's  life  can  be  given  to  men  it  must 
be  poured  forth;  on  the  cross  he  beholds  it 
freely  given  for  men;  the  Lord's  supper,  recall- 
ing his  death,  is  the  perpetual  pledge  that  it  is  his 
who  sincerely  hungers  for  the  bread  of  life. 
There  are  both  mysticism  and  symbolism  here  to 
which  some  minds  do  not  quickly  respond;  but 
there  is  also  the  very  heart  of  Christian  faith 
and  experience.  We  can  never  emphasize  over- 
much the  fact  that  if  there  is  to  be  life  achieved 
there  must  be  life  received.  The  gospel  of  the 
cross  is  preeminently  a  gospel  of  power. 

Yet  another  cannot  separate  in  his  thought 
the  death  of  Christ  from  his  life  and  his  words. 
To  him  the  incarnation,  the  entrance  of  God 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  87 

in  Christ  into  human  life,  is  the  beginning  of  the 
cross.  He  does  not  depreciate  Calvary;  he  ex- 
tends and  prolongs  it  immeasurably.  But  he 
cannot  think  of  the  cross  as  a  single  event  in 
time;  to  him  it  is  an  age-long  sacrifice,  not  a 
momentary  surrender,  a  divine  life-work,  not  an 
infinite  transaction.  He  speaks  of  the  atoning 
life  more  than  of  the  atoning  death.  To  him  it 
seems  that  Christ  is  still  being  borne  to  the 
cross;  the  thought  of  Sigismund  Goetze's  great 
picture,  possesses  his  soul;  he  seems  to  see  the 
Master  being  crucified  afresh  not  only  on  the 
steps  of  St.  Paul's  cathedral  to-day  (as  the  pict- 
ure suggests),  but  wherever  men  are  deaf  to  his 
appeals,  false  to  their  true  selves  and  their  fel- 
lows, blind  to  the  rich  meanings  of  their  lives. 
His  soul  responds  to  the  pathetic  cry  of  the  Di- 
vine sufferer,  "Is  it  nothing  to  you,  all  ye  that 
pass  by  ?"  All  this  may  be  very  vague;  it  may 
not  always  put  the  emphasis  where  it  has  com- 
monly been  put;  but  if  it  arouse  in  this  man 
a  great  love  and  loyalty,  who  shall  say  that  the 
gospel  of  the  cross  has  not  entered  with  recon- 
ciling power  his  soul  ? 

To  very  many,  baffled,  burdened  souls,  the 


88  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

great  gospel  of  the  cross  is  that  it  illumines  as 
does  nothing  else  the  dark  mystery  of  life.  He 
to  whom  was  given  the  wondrous  testimony, 
"This  is  my  beloved  Son,"  the  sinless,  perfect 
Son,  suffers  to  the  very  limit  of  human  suffering 
and  loneliness  and  wrong,  crying  in  anguish, 
"O  my  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let  this  cup 
pass";  in  loneliness,  "My  God,  my  God,  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?"  Not  only  does  he  suf- 
fer, he  submits;  bravely,  patiently,  without  a 
rebellious  word,  he  treads  the  wine-press  alone, 
saying  at  the  last  in  perfect  surrender,  "  Father, 
into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit."  The 
cross  was  in  his  life  who  did  perfectly  the  Fa- 
ther's will;  no  wonder  it  should  be  in  ours.  "I 
have  suffered  a  good  deal  of  pain,"  said  a  work- 
ingman  on  a  sick-bed  to  me,  "but  not  half  what 
my  Saviour  suffered  for  me."  What  a  gospel 
is  here! 

So  one  might  go  on  indefinitely.  All  human 
theories  are  partial  and  inadequate,  relics,  some 
of  them,  of  Jewish  ritual,  and  Roman  law,  and 
pagan  rites,  clever  efforts  most  of  them  to  read 
our  little  human  ways  into  the  ways  of  God. 
The  theory  for  every  man  is  the  theory  that 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  89 

makes  vivid  to  him  the  fact,  the  theory  that 
warms  his  love  for  Christ,  and  quickens  his 
impulse  to  serve  him.  There  may  be  crude 
thinking,  but  if  there  is  an  open  mind  and  a  re- 
sponsive will,  the  Spirit  will  guide  him  into  the 
larger  truth.  But  there  must  be  no  mistake 
about  the  fact.  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself.  Reconciliation  involves 
separation,  antagonism.  Man  self-governed 
is  alienated  from  God.  Sin  is  separation  from 
the  Infinite  above  and  the  Infinite  within.  The 
gospel  of  the  cross  is  that  in  Jesus  Christ  the 
gulf  is  bridged;  through  him  God  comes  to 
man;  through  him  man  comes  to  God,  and  to 
himself. 

My  own  thought  of  the  cross  finds  constant 
illustration  and  illumination  in  that  sphere  to 
which  Jesus  so  often  pointed  men,  the  home. 
A  father's  heart  is  rent  by  the  sin  and  disobedi- 
ence of  his  son.  What  is  the  longing  of  the 
father's  heart  toward  his  boy  ?  The  first  burst 
of  resentment  over,  the  father-love  speaks.  He 
would  forgive  the  boy  freely,  fully.  But  forgive- 
ness without  change  of  mind  and  heart  on  the 
son's  part  achieves  nothing  but  the  mastery  of 


9o  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

the  father's  spirit;  its  probable  issue  is  indiffer- 
ence and  contempt  and  continued  sin.  And  so 
he  must  show  his  son  his  sin;  in  some  way  the 
boy  must  see  it  as  it  is.  Moreover,  he  must 
bear  with  his  son  the  effects  of  his  sin;  whatever 
the  boy  has  to  suffer,  he,  too,  for  the  love  he 
bears  him,  must  suffer  with  him.  Above  all,  he 
must  save  his  son  from  his  sin,  so  that  it  shall 
never  stain  his  life  again. 

All  this,  I  am  sure,  and  much  more  of 
love,  there  is  in  the  great  gospel  of  the  cross. 
The  best  in  man  is  far  beneath  the  least  in 
God.  In  the  words  of  the  old  collect,  it  is 
his  nature  and  property  to  forgive.  There 
is  no  obstacle  to  forgiveness  on  God's  side; 
no  necessity  of  his  nature  to  satisfy  by  a 
divine  sacrifice;  on  God's  side  the  only  ne- 
cessity is  the  necessity  of  love.  The  only  ob- 
stacle to  free  forgiveness  is  on  man's  side.  For- 
giveness that  is  simply  the  erasing  of  a  record  is 
weak  and  ineffective;  soon  man  writes  another 
fouler  still.  Man  must  see  his  sin  as  it  is  and 
turn  from  it.  The  cross,  the  crowning  revela- 
tion of  God's  love,  is  also  the  great  revelation 
of  man's  sin.     This  is  where  it  leads;    this  is 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  91 

what  it  costs;  the  rending  of  the  Divine  Suf- 
ferer's heart,  the  betrayal  and  crucifixion  of 
purity  and  love  by  selfishness  and  hate.  But 
the  cross  is  no  mere  exhibition  of  love  suffering 
for  sin,  no  spectacular  display  of  divine  emotion. 
It  is  all  intensely  real.  Because  he  loves  us,  God 
bears  with  us  the  effects  of  our  sin.  In  the  cross 
the  Divine  Spirit  regnant  in  Christ  entered  into 
the  sins  and  struggles  and  sorrows  of  men,  bore 
them  as  a  mother  bears  the  burden  of  her  child. 
All  this  he  does  to  save;  this  is  the  great  end  of 
sacrificial  love.  And  how  does  the  cross  save  ? 
In  the  home  the  process  is  easy  to  trace.  Touched 
by  his  father's  sorrow,  seeing  in  its  true  light  his 
sin,  what  it  costs,  where  it  leads,  won  by  the 
love  that  shares  with  him  its  penalty,  the  boy 
comes  to  himself,  turns  from  his  sin,  henceforth 
rejoices  to  take  his  father's  way,  not  his  own. 
Just  this  it  is  to  be  saved.  Wherever  kneeling 
at  the  cross,  won  by  the  love  of  the  Father  who 
sent,  or  the  love  of  the  Divine  Saviour  who 
came,  a  man  sees  his  sin  as  it  is,  where  it  leads, 
what  it  costs,  comes  to  himself,  dethrones  the 
baffled  schemes  of  self,  enthrones  the  love  and 
the  will  of  Christ,  he  is  saved.     No  longer  a 


92  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

rebel,  a  malcontent,  he  is  henceforth  a  son,  a 
humble  learner  of  Christ,  a  glad  co-worker  in 
the  toils  of  God  and  the  burdens  of  the  Sav- 
iour. He  has  taken  his  rightful  place  in  the 
great  scheme  of  things;  henceforth  the  re- 
sources of  the  universe  are  his;  the  stars  in  their 
courses  fight  for  him.  Delivered  from  the 
tyranny  of  self,  a  free  captive  of  a  loving  Mas- 
ter, naturalized  into  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  he 
is  reconciled  with  God,  and  to  him  is  given  the 
ministry  of  reconciliation.  He  goes  forth  an 
apostle  of  the  cross,  his  message  this,  "Whoso- 
ever wills  to  lose  his  life  for  Christ's  sake  shall 
find  it." 


IX 

THINGS  TO  COME 

HpHE  doctrine  of  the  future  in  a  working  the- 
ology is  concerned  mainly  with  this  after- 
noon and  to-morrow.  It  has  not  two  gospels, 
one  for  time  and  one  for  eternity,  but  one  for 
the  eternity  which  is  now.  Its  great  guide  and 
inspiration  is  the  priceless  word  of  the  Master, 
"  I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life,"  and  "  He 
that  believeth  on  me  hath  everlasting  life."  The 
moment  of  Christlikeness  is  the  moment  of 
deathless  life. 

The  great  words  of  the  gospel  are  these  two, 
life  and  death,  and  we  are  false  to  the  Master 
when,  charmed  by  the  glory  of  the  one,  we  for- 
get the  dread  reality  of  the  other.  The  more 
one  reads  of  the  sacred  book,  or  learns  of  the 
cruelties  in  nature;  when  one  reflects  that  of 
the  thousand  million  species  of  animals  and 
plants  which  now  tenant  this  earth  not  one  in 
100,000  individuals  ever  reaches  maturity;  when 
horror  after  horror  sends  a  chill  to  the  heart, 
and  he  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  is  silent;   the 

93 


94  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

more  the  conviction  is  likely  to  grow  that  in  all 
the  strange  discipline  and  tragedy  of  life  God  is 
teaching  his  children  the  cheapness,  the  noth- 
ingness of  life  as  men  commonly  conceive  it,  the 
life  of  sleeping  and  waking,  of  hungering  and 
feeding,  of  making  and  spending,  the  life  of  the 
senses  and  the  appetites — it  is  the  cheapest  thing 
in  the  universe.  But  ever  with  this  God  is  teach- 
ing us  the  other  lesson — and  of  it  every  Christian 
is  the  herald — the  priceless  value  of  life  as  God 
conceives  it,  the  life  of  finding  by  losing,  of  get- 
ting by  giving,  of  having  by  doing,  the  life  which 
is  the  harmonious  play  of  all  the  powers  to  high- 
est ends  intent,  the  very  life  of  God  in  the  soul 
of  man.  The  cross  on  Calvary,  on  which  One 
brought  near  to  us  as  the  only  begotten  Son  of 
God  gives  his  life  for  men,  is  the  divine  estimate 
of  the  infinite  and  eternal  value  of  life  like  this. 
And  so  this  is  our  gospel,  "He  that  hath  the 
Son," — he  in  whom  the  love  of  the  Father  has 
awakened  the  loyalty  of  the  Son — "hath  life": 
that  life  in  which  death  shall  be  a  mere  incident 
issuing  in  fairer  forms  and  larger  toils  beyond. 
"He  that  hath  not  the  Son  hath  not  life." 
The  full  content  of  life  or  of  death  hereafter 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  95 

Jesus  has  not  told  us.  Doubtless  the  veiled 
future  is  part  of  the  kindness  and  the  wisdom  of 
this  scheme  of  things.  "Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor 
ear  heard" — we  would  not  understand  it  if  we 
knew.  There  are,  indeed,  many  unanswered 
questions,  and  they  weigh  heavily  at  times  on 
the  minds  of  thoughtful  men.  There  are  ear- 
nest Christians  who  expect  the  Master  to  return 
very  soon  and  reign  upon  this  earth;  the  pro- 
phetic Scriptures  seem  to  them  to  make  this 
clear.  There  are  others  who  believe  that  in  the 
Spirit  the  rich  promises  of  another  coming  have 
already  been  fulfilled;  their  interpretation  is 
more  spiritual  and  to  them  more  helpful;  they 
are  nearer  to  Paul  when  he  says,  "To  me  to  live 
is  Christ,"  or  "Christ  in  you,  the  hope  of  glory," 
than  when  he  says,  "We  which  are  alive  and 
remain  shall  be  caught  up  together  with  them 
intheclouds."  Menask:  where  is  heaven  ?  what 
shall  we  do  there  ?  shall  we  know  our  loved  ones 
again  ?  must  not  a  loving  and  omnipotent  God 
triumph  at  last  in  every  soul  he  has  created  ?  will 
not  all  punishment  prove  remedial  ?  how  could 
a  mother  live  in  bliss  while  her  son  suffered  or 
was  lost  ? 


96  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

A  wise  working  theology  leaves  these  ques- 
tions, and  many  others,  trustfully  in  the  hands 
of  Him  who  doeth  all  things  well.  It  emphasizes 
the  Master's  own  words  "Watch,  and  pray"; 
be  ready  for  whatever  God's  plan  for  you  may 
any  day  reveal.  It  balances  the  larger  hope, 
the  apparent  logic  that  an  omnipotent  God  who 
is  Love  must  triumph  at  last  in  every  life,  by  the 
tender  Saviour's  emphasis  upon  the  great  alter- 
natives, his  pictures  of  the  offal  heap  into  which 
the  city's  refuse  was  cast  and  the  great  gulf 
fixed,  his  word  of  the  tree  that  bore  no  fruit, 
"Cut  it  down,"  of  the  man  who  made  nothing  of 
his  talent,  "Give  it  to  him  that  hath  ten."  It 
feels  the  clear  words  of  the  Master  to  be  a  far 
better  basis  for  the  business  of  living  than  the 
vague  hope  that  somehow  everything  will  turn 
out  right  at  the  last.  It  recalls  that  love  is  not 
a  pretty  sentiment,  a  weak  emotion,  love  is  the 
most  compelling  force  in  the  universe;  love  is 
tender,  but  also  love  is  stern;  love  seeks,  but 
also  love  shuns;  love  is  passionate,  persuasive, 
but  also  love  is  pure.  May  there  not  be  beyond 
tremendous  spiritual  realities,  to  us  as  we  think 
of  them   sadly   blighting,  which    God   in    his 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  97 

wisdom  and  love  will  see  to  be  wholly  good  ? 
Perhaps  no  wiser  words  have  been  written  on 
the  problems  of  destiny  than  those  of  the  ten- 
der Whittier: 

"Forever  round  the  mercy-seat, 

The  guiding  lights  of  love  shall  burn; 

But  what  if,  habit-bound,  thy  feet 

Shall  lack  the  will  to  turn? 

What  if  thine  eye  refuse  to  see 

Thine  ear  of  heaven's  free  welcome  fail, 

And  thou  a  willing  captive  be 

Thyself  thine  own  dark  jail? 

O  doom  beyond  the  saddest  guess, 

As  the  long  years  of  God  unroll, 

To  make  thy  dreary  selfishness 

The  prison  of  a  soul." 

But  there  will  be  no  shadow  upon  the  bliss  of 
those  who  enter  at  last  into  the  fulness  of  life 
beyond.  If  there  be  a  contradiction  here,  God 
holds  the  key,  and  his  secret,  we  may  be  sure,  is 
far  better  than  the  loftiest  of  man's  groping. 

In  a  working  theology  the  great  question  for 
every  man  is  not,  Is  there  a  future  life  ?  what 
sort  of  life  will  it  be  ?  but,  Is  there  anything  in 
my  life  that  is  worth  a  future,  anything  which 
an  Infinite  God  who  has  the  business  of  a  uni- 


98  A  WORKING  THEOLOGY 

verse  on  hand — the  making  of  men,  the  defeat 
of  sin  and  selfishness,  the  establishment  of  a 
universal  spiritual  kingdom  of  righteousness 
and  peace  and  truth — can  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected to  continue  to  all  eternity  ?  In  a  word, 
what  is  there  in  me  of  the  things  that  are  un- 
seen and  eternal,  the  fabric  of  which  through 
the  ages  God  is  building  his  spiritual  uni- 
verse. 

From  the  vagueness  and  uncertainty  of  the 
future  there  is  but  one  sure  refuge;  it  is  to  be 
found  in  a  life  of  love  and  loyalty,  sincere  and 
thoroughgoing,  to  the  great  Master  who  even 
here  leads  us  to  heavenly  summits,  and  who 
dispels  all  fear  of  death  and  the  mysteries  be- 
yond by  his  confident  word,  "I  have  the  keys 
of  hell  and  of  death."  To  him,  one  must 
notice,  it  is  all  intensely  personal;  he  does  not 
simply  say,  There  is  a  future  life,  but  "I  am 
the  Resurrection  and  the  Life,"  "  I  go  to  prepare 
a  place  for  you,"  "  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with 
me  in  Paradise."  It  is  an  unfailing  stay  and 
strength  that  he,  who  was  so  selfless  and 
so  humble,  who  has  never  deceived  those  who 
have    trusted    him    in    deepest    things,    whose 


A  WORKING  THEOLOGY  99 

boldest  words  have  been  so  marvellously  ful- 
filled, spoke  here  without  the  shadow  of  uncer- 
tainty. To  him  it  was  clear  and  sure;  there 
will  be  enduring  personality;  there  will  be  life, 
boundless  and  beautiful,  reaching  on  to  the 
infinitudes  of  God. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY, 

BERKELEY 


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